ce
(possibly his friend Fechter, the actor), as he noticed from time to
time a regular improvement, which was permanently maintained. On the
subject of the American War, he thinks Dickens's sympathies were
decidedly with the South. With respect to the American Readings, Dr.
Steele expresses his opinion that the excitement, fatigue, and worry
consequent thereon had considerably shortened Dickens's life, if it had
not pretty well killed him. He considered him a most genial sort of
man; "he always looked you straight in the face when speaking."

Before referring to the closing chapter in Dickens's life, we have some
interesting talk respecting Venesection,--_a propos_ of that memorable
occasion on the ice at Dingley Dell, when "Mr. Benjamin Allen was
holding a hurried consultation with Mr. Bob Sawyer on the advisability
of bleeding the company generally, as an improving little bit of
professional practice,"--and Dr. Steele gives us his opinion thereon,
and on some points connected with the medical profession. He was a
student of Guy's and St. Thomas's Hospitals, and was under the
distinguished physicians Drs. Addison and Elliotson. He considered the
characters of Bob Sawyer and Ben Allen not at all overdrawn. They were
good representations of the medical students of those days. He believed
the practice of Venesection commenced to be general about the year 1811,
for his father was a medical practitioner before him, and he does not
remember his (the father's) telling him that he practised it before that
time. Says our friend, "We used to bleed regularly in my young days, and
in cases of pneumonia and convulsions we never thought of omitting to
bleed. We should have considered that to have done so would have been a
grave instance of irregular practice. And," he adds, "I bleed in cases
of convulsions now." The doctor did not think well of the change at the
time, but, speaking generally, he says Venesection had had its turn, and
has now given place to other treatment.

The events in connection with the fatal illness of Dickens are then
touchingly related as follows:--

"I was sent for on Wednesday, the eighth of June, 1870, to attend at
Gad's Hill Place, and arrived about 6.30 p.m. I found Dickens lying on
the floor of the dining-room in a fit. He was unconscious, and never
moved. The servants brought a couch down, on which he was placed. I
applied clysters and other remedies to the patient without effect. Miss
Hogarth, his