Abernethy was very successful in this respect. His voice seldom rose above what we may term the conversational, either in pitch or tone; it was, in general, pleasing in quality, and enlivened by a sort of archness of expression. His loudest tone was never oppressive to those nearest to him; his most subdued, audible everywhere. The _range_ of pitch was very limited; the expression of the eye, and a _slight modulation_ of the voice being the means by which he infused through the lecture an agreeable variety, or gave to particular sentiments the requisite expression. There was nothing like declamation; even quotations were seldom louder than would have been admissible in a drawing-room. We have heard lecturers whose habitually declamatory tone has been very disagreeable; and this seldom fails to be mischievous. A declamatory tone tends to divert the attention, or to weary it when properly directed. On almost every subject, it is sure to be the source of occasional bathos, which now and then borders on the ridiculous. Conceive a man, describing a curious animal in a diagram, saying, "This part, to which I now direct my rod, is the point of the tail," in a sepulchral tone, and heavy cadence, as if he had said, "This is the end of all things." Another inconvenience often attending a declamatory tone, as distinguished from the narrative or descriptive, is the tendency it has to make a particular cadence. Sometimes we have heard lecturers give to every other sentence a peculiar fall; and this succession of rhythmical samenesses, if the lecturer be not otherwise extremely able, sends people napping. 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.