Another fault we observe in some lecturers is, a reiteration of particular phrases. In description, it is not easy always to avoid this; but it seldom occurred in any disagreeable degree in Abernethy. We have heard some lecturers, in describing things, continually reiterating such phrases as "We find," "It is to be observed," in such quick and frequent succession, that people's sides began to jog in spite of them.
Provincial or national idiom, or other peculiarity, is by no means uncommon, and generally more or less disagreeable, Abernethy was particularly free from either. He could, in telling stories, slightly imitate the tone and manner of the persons concerned; but it was always touched in the lightest possible manner, and with the subdued colouring and finish of a first-rate artist. His power of impressing facts, and of rendering them simple and interesting by abundance and variety of illustration, was very remarkable, and had the effect of imparting an interest to the driest subject. In the first place, he had an agreeable mode of sympathizing with the difficulty of the student. If he were about to describe a bone or anything which he knew to be difficult, he would adopt a tone more like that in which a man would teach it to himself than describe it to others. For example, he would say, perhaps: "Ah! this is a queer-looking bone; it has a very odd shape; but I plainly perceive that one may divide it into two parts." Then pointing with a probe to the division he proposed, he would begin, not so much to describe as to find, as if for the first time, the various parts of which he wished to teach the names and uses; the description being a kind of running accompaniment to his tracing of the bone, and in a tone as if half-talking to himself and half to the audience.
Every one feels the value of order, and clearness of arrangement. Of Abernethy's, we have already spoken generally: simplicity, and impressing the more essential facts, were his main objects. He showed very frequently his perception of the importance of order, and would often methodize for the students. He knew very well that A B C was much more easily remembered than Z K J; and he would sometimes humorously contrast the difference between a man whose knowledge was well packed, and one whose information was scattered and without arrangement. This he usually did by supposing two students under examination. The scene would not tell upon paper; but it never failed to create a good deal of mirth in the theatre, during which he would contrive to repeat the facts he meant to impress, without the tedium of mere reiteration.
Various people have been more or less deeply impressed with different parts of his lectures, most persons having their favourite passages. In his anatomical course we were never more pleased than by his general view of the structure of the body. He adopted on that occasion the synthetical plan, and in imagination put the various parts together which were to be afterwards taught analytically. In his surgical course, the manner in which he illustrated the practical points, and his own views in the "Eventful History of a Compound Fracture," was, we think, the most successful triumph, both as to matter and manner, which we have ever witnessed.
An abundance of resource and manœuvres of the kind we have mentioned, gave a great "liveliness" to his lecture, which in its quiet form so as not to divert or disturb, is a great difficulty in lecturing.
We have heard an excellent lecturer whose only fault, we think, was want of liveliness and variety. Few men could in other respects lecture comparably to him. Nothing could surpass the quiet, polished manner of this accomplished teacher. His voice, though not good, was by no means unpleasing. His articulation elaborately distinct, and free from all provincialism. His language invariably correct and appropriate; the structure of his sentences strikingly grammatical; and they fell in such an easy, though somewhat too rhythmical succession, as to be at once graceful and melodious. His arrangement, always simple and clear. Nothing was more striking than the deferential manner in which he approached a philosophical subject. "I like ——," said one who had often heard him, "because he is always so gentlemanly. There is nothing off-hand, as if he thought himself very clever, but a kind of unaffected respect for himself and his audience, which obliges one to pay attention to him, if it were only because you feel that a man of education is speaking to you."
What, it may be said, can such a man want? Why he wanted liveliness and flexibility. His voice measured forth its gentlemanly way with all the regularity of a surveying rod. Various and interesting as his subjects were, and handled with consummate ability, he must certainly have taught; yet we think he sent away many of his audience passive recipients, as distinguished from persons set on thinking what they had heard "into their own."
He performed his task like a good man and a scholar; but still it was like a task after all. It was something like a scholar reading a book, always excepting the beautifully clear illustrations for which his subject gave him abundant opportunity. He wanted that animation and interest in his subject by which a lecturer inoculates you with his own enthusiasm. He was the most striking example in our experience of the importance of liveliness and variety, and of making a lecture, however well delivered, just that thing which we cannot find in a book. The life-like, the dramatic effect was wanting; and it was to this alone that we can ascribe what we have not unfrequently observed in the midst of a generally attentive audience, a few who were "nodding" their assent to his propositions.
Now Abernethy's manner was perfect in these respects. He had just got the "cheerfully, not too fast" expression, that we sometimes see at the head of a musical composition. His manner was so good, that it is difficult to convey any idea of it. It was easy, without being negligent; cheerful, without being excited; humorous, often witty, without being vulgar; expeditious, without being in a bustle; and he usually took care that you should learn the thing, before he gave the name of it; and understand it, before he expatiated on the beauty or perfection of its adaptation to the ends it seemed designed to serve.
He was particularly chaste in the manner in which he spoke of design, or other of the Attributes so frequently observable in natural arrangements. It is a great mistake, we think, and not without something akin to vulgarity, to usher in any description of the beauties of nature by a flourish of such trumpets as human epithets form—mere notes of admiration. Nature speaks best for herself. The mind is kept in a state of excitement by too frequent feux de joies of this kind; the frequent recurrence of such terms as "curious! strange! wonderful!" on subjects where all is wonderful, have a sort of bathos in the ears of the judicious, while to the less critical they produce a kind of disturbed atmosphere, which is unfavourable to the calm operations of the intellect.