Some boys live on encouragement, others seem to work best "up stream." Niebuhr, the traveller, the father of a son no less illustrious, with anything but an originally acute mind, seems to have overcome every disadvantage which the almost constant absence of opportunity could combine. Those who are curious in such matters might easily multiply examples of the foregoing description, and add others where—as in the case of Galileo, Newton, Wren, and many others—the predictions suggested by early physical organization proved as erroneous as the intellectual indications to which we have just adverted.
The truth is, we have a great deal to learn on the subject of mind, although there is no want of materials for instruction. Medicine and surgery are not the only branches of knowledge which require the aid of strictly inductive inquiry. In all, the materials (facts) are abundant.
In Abernethy there was a polarity of character, an individuality, a positiveness of type, which would have made the boy a tolerably intelligible outline of the future man. The evidence is imperfect; it is chiefly drawn from the recollections of a living few, who, though living, have become the men of former days; but still the evidence all inclines one way.
We can quite imagine a little boy, "careless in his dress, not slovenly," with his hands in his pockets, some morning about the year 1774, standing under the sunny side of the wall, at Wolverhampton Grammar School[7]; his pockets containing, perhaps, a few shillings, some halfpence, and a knife with the point broken, a pencil, together with a tolerably accurate sketch of "Old Robertson's" wig. This article, as shown in an accredited portrait[8] now lying before us, was one of those enormous bygone bushes which represented a sort of impenetrable fence round the cranium, as if to guard the precious material within. The said boy just finishing a story to his laughing companions, though no sign of fun appeared in him, save a little curl of the lip, and a smile which would creep out of the corner of his eye in spite of him. I have had the good fortune to find no less than three schoolfellows of Abernethy, who are still living: John Fowler, Esq. of Datchet, a gentleman whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for many years, and who enjoys, in honourable retirement at his country seat, at the age of eighty-two, the perfect possession of all his faculties; William Thacker[9], Esq. of Muchall, about two miles from Wolverhampton, who is in his eighty-fifth year; T. Tummins, Esq. of King Street, Wolverhampton, who is in his eighty-seventh year. To these gentlemen, and to J. Wynn, Esq. also of Wolverhampton, I am principally indebted for the few reminiscences I have been able to collect of the boyish days of Abernethy.
The information which I gained from Mr. Fowler, he gave me himself; he also kindly procured me a long letter from Mr. Wynn. The reminiscences of Mr. Tummins and Mr. Thacker, I have obtained through the very courteous and kind assistance of the Rev. W. White, the late[10] distinguished head master of the Wolverhampton School.
To all of these gentlemen I cannot too strongly express my thanks, for the prompt and kind manner in which they have replied to all the enquiries which have been addressed to them. The following are the principal facts which their letters contain, or the conclusions they justify. Abernethy must have gone to Wolverhampton when very young, probably; I should say certainly before 1774. He was brought by Dr. Robertson from London, with another pupil, "his friend Thomas;" and the "two Londoners" boarded with Dr. Robertson. When Mr. Fowler went there in 1778, Abernethy was high up in the school, and ultimately got to the head of the senior form. He must have left Wolverhampton in all probability not later than 1778, because Dr. Robertson resigned the head mastership in that year; and we know that in the following (1779), when he was fifteen, Abernethy was apprenticed to Sir Charles Blicke.
Mr. Thacker says he was very studious, clever, a good scholar, humorous, but very passionate. Mr. Tummins, Mr. Thacker says, knew Abernethy well. Abernethy used to go and dine frequently with Mr. Tummins's father. Mr. Tummins says "Abernethy was a sharp boy, a very sharp boy, and a very passionate one too. Dr. Robertson," he says, "was also a very passionate man."
One day, Abernethy had to "do" some Greek Testament; and it appeared that he set off very glibly, having a "crib" in the shape of a Greek Testament, with a Latin version on the other side. The old Doctor, suspecting the case, discovered the crib, and the pupil was instantly "levelled with the earth." This fortiter in re plan of carrying the intellect by a coup-de-main, has, as the late head master observed, been replaced by more refined modes of proceeding. The more energetic plan was (however coarse and objectionable) not always unsuccessful in implanting a certain quantity of Latin and Greek. Abernethy was a very fair Latin scholar, and he certainly had not, at one period, a bad knowledge of Greek also.
There are, however, many other things to be learnt besides Latin and Greek; and it is probable that the more measured reliance on such violent appeals, which characterizes modern education, might have been better suited to Abernethy. To a boy who was naturally shy, and certainly passionate, such mechanical illustrations of his duty were likely to augment shyness into distrust, and to exacerbate an excitable temper into an irritable disposition.