We think it not improbable that it was somewhere about this period that it was proposed to confer on him the honour of a Baronetcy. We had long been familiar with the fact; but not regarding it as very important, and having nothing in proof of it but the generally received impression, we omitted any reference to it in the first edition of these Memoirs. Finding, however, more interest attached to the circumstance than we expected, we have communicated with the family on the subject, and have ascertained that all the circumstances are fresh in their recollection, although they cannot recall the exact period at which they occurred.
His first announcement of the fact to his family was at table, by his jocosely saying: "Lady Abernethy, will you allow me to assist you to—?" &c. Having had his joke, he then formally announced to them the fact, together with the reasons which had induced him to decline the proffered honour—namely, that he did not consider his fortune sufficient, after having made what he regarded as only a necessary provision for his family.
It is probable that his motives were of a mixed character. We do not believe that he attached much value to this kind of distinction, and that, had he availed himself of the offer, it would have been rather from a kind of deference to the recognition it afforded of the claims, and thus indirectly promoting the cultivation of Science, than for any other reason. It was not but that he held rank and station in the respect which is justly due to them; but that he regarded titles as no very certain tests of scientific distinction. Enthusiastic in his admiration of intellectual, still more of moral excellence, he had something scarcely less than coldness in regard to the value of mere titles; whilst he beheld, with something like repulsion, the flattery to which their possessors were so often exposed.
There are men who have so individualized themselves that they seem to obscure their identity by any new title. John Hunter was scarcely known by any less simple appellation. We hardly now say "Mr." Hunter without feeling that we may be misunderstood. It begins to have a sound like "Mr." Milton or "Mr." Shakspeare; Abernethy and John Abernethy are fast becoming the only recognized designations of our philosophical surgeon, for even the modest prefix of Mr. is fast going into disuse. Be this as it may, it is certain he declined the honour; and to us it is equally so that he felt at least indifferent to it; for although the good sense and good feeling implied in the reasons alleged were characteristic, yet, had they constituted the only motive, he might, with his abundant opportunities, have removed that objection in a very reasonable time, without difficulty.
It is perhaps significant of the measured interest with which Mr. Abernethy regarded the acquisition of a Baronetcy, that the family could not recollect the period at which it was offered. This information, however, I obtained from Sir Benjamin Brodie, who has kindly allowed me to record the fact in the following reply to my inquiry on the subject.
"14, Saville Row,
"November 16, 1854."My dear Sir,
"My answer to your inquiry may be given in a very few words. I perfectly well remember the having been informed by the late Sir John Becket that he had been commissioned by Lord Liverpool to offer Mr. Abernethy, on the part of the Crown, the honor of being created a Baronet, which, however, Mr. Abernethy declined.
"I am, dear Sir,
"Yours faithfully,
"B. C. Brodie."G. Macilwain, Esq."
He told me once of an interview he had with Lord Castlereagh, which may, perhaps, be not out of place here. When Sir T. Lawrence was painting the portrait, and Abernethy went to give him a sitting, Abernethy was shown into a room where another visitor, a stranger to him, was also waiting. The stranger, looking at a portrait of the Duke of York, observed, "Very well painted, and very like." "Very well painted," Abernethy replied. The other rejoined: "A good picture, and an excellent likeness." "A very good picture," said Abernethy. "And an excellent likeness," again rejoined his companion. "Why, the fact is," said Abernethy, "Sir Thomas has lived so much amongst the great, that he has learnt to flatter them most abominably." On being shown in to Sir Thomas, Sir Thomas said: "I find you have been talking to Lord Castlereagh."
He had not, we think, as yet sustained the loss of any member of his family, nor hardly experienced any of those ordinary crosses from which few men's lives are free, and which, sooner or later, seldom fail to strew our paths with enough to convince us that perfect peace cannot be auspiciously sought in the conduct of human affairs. He was soon, however, to receive an impression of a painful nature, and from a quarter whence, whatever might have been his experience, he certainly little expected it. Long accustomed to be listened to by admiring and assenting audiences, whether in the theatre of the hospital, or in those clusters of pupils which never failed to crowd around him whenever he had anything to say; he was now to have some of his opinions disputed, his mode of advocating them impugned, his views of "Life," made the subject of ridicule, and even his fair dealing in argument called in question. All this, too, by no stranger; no person known only to him as one of the public, but by one who had been his pupil, whose talents he had helped to mature and develop, whose progress and prospects in life he had fostered and improved, and to whom, as was affirmed by the one, and attested by the other, he had been a constant friend.
That this controversy was the source of much suffering to Abernethy, we are compelled to believe; and it is altogether to us so disagreeable, and difficult a subject, that we should have preferred confining ourselves to a bare mention of it, and a reference to the works wherein the details might be found; it is, however, too important an episode in the life of Abernethy to be so passed over; it suggests many interesting reflections; it exhibits Abernethy in a new phase, illustrates, under very trying circumstances, the