Do wrong to none: be able for thine enemy
Rather in power than use; and keep thy friend
Under thine own Life's key: be check'd for silence,
But never tax'd for speech. What Heaven more will,
That thee may furnish, and my prayers pluck down,
Fall on thy head!"
All's Well that ends Well.
In reviewing the facts of the foregoing controversy, we are anxious to restrict our remarks to such points as fall within the proper scope of our present object. These appear to us to relate to the mode in which Mr. Abernethy conducted his argument, as being legitimate or otherwise; secondly, the influence the whole affair had in developing one of the most important features in his character; and, lastly, the impression it produced, for good or evil, on the public mind, in relation to our profession.
We would observe, in the first place, that the difficulty of Mr. Abernethy's position was very painful and peculiar. We are not learned in controversy; but we should imagine that position to have been almost without parallel. Mr. Lawrence had been his pupil. As we have seen, Mr. Abernethy had been his patron and his friend; and, moreover, he had been not a little instrumental in placing Mr. Lawrence in the Professor's chair. This instrumentality could not have been merely passive. Mr. Abernethy himself was not a senior of the Council at that time. At all events, he was associated at the College with men much older than himself, and must have owed any influence in the appointment to an active expression of his wishes, supported by that attention to them which, though not necessarily connected with his standing at the College, was readily enough, no doubt, conceded to his talents and his reputation. His singleness of mind in this business was the more amiable, because, had he been disposed to be inactive, there were not wanting circumstances which might not unnaturally have induced some hesitation on the subject. In the postscript at the end of Mr. Abernethy's published Lectures, delivered at the College, we learn that, "From an early period of his studies, Mr. Lawrence had been accustomed to decry and scoff at what I taught as Mr. Hunter's opinions respecting life and its functions; yet," he adds, "as I never could find that he had any good reason for his conduct, I continued to teach them in the midst of the controversy, and derision of such students as had become his proselytes," &c.
This could hardly have been very agreeable. The pupils were wont to discuss most subjects in their gossips in the Square of the hospital, or elsewhere; and many a careless hour has not been unprofitably so employed. On such occasions, those who were so inclined would no doubt use ridicule, or any other weapon that suited their purpose; and so long as any reasonable limits were observed, Mr. Abernethy was the last person likely to take notice of anything which might have reached him on the subject. On the contrary, it was his excellence, and his often-expressed wish that we should canvass every subject for ourselves; and he would enforce the sincerity of his recommendation by advising us with an often-repeated quotation: