lecturer's topics, might easily have
supposed him to be an actor entertaining his audience with a monologue,
after the manner of Matthews or Yates. This disposition, indeed, gave rise
to a joke among his pupils of "_Abernethy at Home_," whenever he lectured
upon any special subject. In relating a case, he was seen at times to be
quite fatigued with the contortions into which he threw his body and limbs;
and the stories he would tell of his consultations, with the dialogue
between his patient and himself, were theatrical and comic to the greatest
degree.

_Northcote and the present King._

A certain Royal Duke was at the head of those who chaperoned Master Betty,
the young Roscius, at the period when the _furor_ of fashion made all the
_beau monde_ consider it an enviable honour to be admitted within
throne-distance of the boy-actor. Amongst others who obtained the
privilege of making a portrait of this chosen favourite of fortune, was Mr.
Northcote.

The royal Duke to whom we allude was in the habit of taking Master Betty
to Argyll Place in his own carriage; and there were usually three or four
ladies and gentlemen of rank, who either accompanied his Royal Highness,
or met him at the studio of the artist.

Northcote, nothing awed by the splendid coteries thus assembled,
maintained his opinions upon all subjects that were discussed,--and his
independence obtained for him general respect, though one pronounced him a
cynic--another an eccentric--another a humorist--another a
free-thinker--and the prince, with manly taste, in the nautical phrase,
dubbed him a d----d honest, independent, little old fellow.

One day, however, the royal Duke, being left with only Lady ----, the
young Roscius, and the painter, and his patience being, perhaps, worn a
little with the tedium of an unusually long sitting, thought to beguile an
idle minute by quizzing the personal appearance of the Royal Academician.
Northcote, at no period of life, was either a buck, a blood, a fop, or a
maccaroni; he soon dispatched the business of dressing when a young man;
and, as he advanced to a later period, he certainly could not be called a
dandy. The loose gown in which he painted was principally composed of
shreds and patches, and might, perchance, be half a century old; his white
hair was sparingly bestowed on each side, and his cranium was entirely
bald. The royal visiter, standing behind him whilst he painted, first
gently lifted, or rather twitc