Those of the audience who had heard the graceful exordium, which we have quoted, to the first course of lectures, and which so appropriately represented a just tribute to a great master and kind friend, from a distinguished and favoured pupil, were now to listen to a discourse which was so charged with various shades and descriptions of ridicule and invective, as scarcely to be paralleled in the whole history of literary or scientific controversy. We have recently again perused the respective Lectures, and we are utterly at a loss to understand how the most sensitive mind could have found anything in Mr. Abernethy's Lectures to call for such a "Reply." As it appears to us, its very virulence was calculated to weaken its force, and to enlist the sympathies of people on the opposite side. We again forbear quotation. All we have to do is to show that circumstances of very unusual provocation, such as no man living could help feeling most deeply, and which bore on one who was acutely sensitive, never materially disturbed the native benevolence of Abernethy's disposition. The dispute, however, soon merged into matters which the public regarded as more important. Mr. Lawrence, in the lectures which followed, took occasion to make some remarks on the Scriptures, which gave great offence, and led other writers to engage in a controversy which now assumed more of a theological than a physiological character. This, however, rather belongs to the writings and opinions of Mr. Lawrence, than to the life of Abernethy. We will therefore at once offer the very few observations which we alone think it necessary to make, either in justice to Mr. Abernethy or the profession. [Footnote 38: March, 1816. Introductory Lecture to Comparative Anatomy. Published, July.] [Footnote 39: Introduction to Comp. Anat. by W. Lawrence, F.R.S. London, 1816.] CHAPTER XX. "Love all, trust a few, 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.