On the afternoon of July 6th, our hosts had a large garden-party.  If nothing is more trying than one of these out-of-door meetings on a cold, windy, damp day, nothing can be more delightful than such a social gathering if the place and the weather are just what we could wish them.  The garden-party of this afternoon was as near perfection as such a meeting could well be.  The day was bright and warm, but not uncomfortably hot, to me, at least.  The company strolled about the grounds, or rested on the piazzas, or watched the birds in the aviary, or studied rudimentary humanity in the monkey, or, better still, in a charming baby, for the first time on exhibition since she made the acquaintance of sunshine.  Every one could dispose of himself or herself as fancy might suggest.  I broke away at one time, and wandered alone by the side of the Avon, under the shadow of the tall trees upon its bank.  The whole scene was as poetical, as inspiring, as any that I remember.  It would be easy to write verses about it, but unwritten poems are so much better!

One reminiscence of that afternoon claims precedence over all the rest.  The reader must not forget that I have been a medical practitioner, and for thirty-five years a professor in a medical school.  Among the guests whom I met in the grounds was a gentleman of the medical profession, whose name I had often heard, and whom I was very glad to see and talk with.  This was Mr. Lawson Tait, F.R.C.S., M.D., of Birmingham.  Mr., or more properly Dr., Tait has had the most extraordinary success in a class of cases long considered beyond the reach of surgery.  If I refer to it as a scientific hari kari, not for the taking but for the saving of life, I shall come near enough to its description.  This operation is said to have been first performed by an American surgeon in Danville, Kentucky, in the year 1809.  So rash and dangerous did it seem to most of the profession that it was sometimes spoken of as if to attempt it were a crime.  Gradually, however, by improved methods, and especially by the most assiduous care in nursing the patient after the operation, the mortality grew less and less, until it was recognized as a legitimate and indeed an invaluable addition to the resources of surgery.  Mr. Lawson Tait has had, so far as I have been able to learn, the most wonderful series of successful cases on record:  namely, one hundred and thirty-nine consecutive operations without a single death.

As I sat by the side of this great surgeon, a question suggested itself to my mind which I leave the reader to think over.  Which would give the most satisfaction to a thoroughly humane and unselfish being, of cultivated intelligence and lively sensibilities:  to have written all the plays which Shakespeare has left as an inheritance for mankind, or to have snatched from the jaws of death more than a hundred fellow-creatures,—­almost seven scores of suffering women,—­and restored them to sound and comfortable existence?  It would