The young surgeon soon began to put his original powers in evidence by starting as a lecturer. Mr. Pott had for years given a course of lectures on surgery, but no other lectures had been delivered, and the medical school of St. Bartholomew’s must be regarded as owing its establishment to Abernethy. To be the life and soul of a new school is enough for any man in his maturest years; it was more than enough for Abernethy, beginning at twenty-three, when everything was new, and precedents were few, and when his own faculties and studies still lacked much. To this we must largely attribute the worn-out look which began to settle upon his face from the age of fifty. He was not content in his lecturing with any dry and orderly narration, but combined with his descriptive account the purposes of a structure, the diseases and accidents to which it is liable, and illustrations from comparative anatomy. He for a long time included in his courses at once anatomy, physiology, pathology, and surgery; at the same time he kept up his attendance on John Hunter’s lectures, and diligently studied in the wards of the hospital. His industry at this period was such that he rose at four, and sometimes went into the country that he might read with less interruption. It may seem strange, in connection with the well-known brusqueness of his manner, to read that he had an unconquerable shyness in his early years of lecturing, which often made him retire from the theatre to regain his composure before being able to commence his lecture. But this shyness is often a concomitant of real talent and originality before it has found means to display itself effectively; and brusqueness is in not a few instances the cloak of timidity. When his dramatic instincts had led him into his true path, he soon gained in ease, and his classes increased so rapidly that in 1790 the governors of St. Bartholomew’s resolved to build him a theatre, which was opened in October 1791. Abernethy’s style in lecturing is described by those who heard him as unique both in communicating his ideas and in interesting his pupils. When his style had fully developed, it was spoken of as “Abernethy at Home.” His mode of entering the lecture-room, says Pettigrew, was often irresistibly droll; his hands buried deep in his breeches-pockets, his body bent slouchingly forward, blowing or whistling, his eyes twinkling beneath their arches, and his lower jaw thrown considerably beneath the upper. Then he would cast himself into a chair, swing one of his legs over an arm of it, and commence his lecture in the most _outré_ manner. The abruptness, however, never failed to command silence, and rivet attention.