Now Abernethy's manner was perfect in these respects. He had just got the "cheerfully, not too fast" expression, that we sometimes see at the head of a musical composition. His manner was so good, that it is difficult to convey any idea of it. It was easy, without being negligent; cheerful, without being excited; humorous, often witty, without being vulgar; expeditious, without being in a bustle; and he usually took care that you should learn _the thing_, before he gave the _name of it_; and understand it, before he expatiated on the beauty or perfection of its adaptation to the ends it seemed designed to serve. He was particularly chaste in the manner in which he spoke of design, or other of the Attributes so frequently observable in natural arrangements. It is a great mistake, we think, and not without something akin to vulgarity, to usher in any description of the beauties of nature by a flourish of such trumpets as human epithets form—mere notes of admiration. Nature speaks best for herself. The mind is kept in a state of excitement by too frequent _feux de joies_ of this kind; the frequent recurrence of such terms as "curious! strange! wonderful!" on subjects where all is wonderful, have a sort of bathos in the ears of the judicious, while to the less critical they produce a kind of disturbed atmosphere, which is unfavourable to the calm operations of the intellect. Abernethy was generally very careful in these matters. I give one example. He is speaking of cartilage, or gristle, which covers the ends of the bones where they form joints, and has explained its great elasticity, the use of it in preventing jarring; and contrasted the _springiness_ of youth with the easily jarred frame of age. "Well," he adds, "this cartilage is fibrous, and they say that the fibres are arranged vertically; so that the body may be said to be supported on '_myriads of elastic columns_.'" That was the beauty by which he wished to impress that which he had previously _taught_. When marvellousness is too much excited, many say, "Ah, how clever that gentleman is! what an interesting lecture! what a curious thing that was he showed us!" But when you inquire what _principle_ or _law_ was intended to be illustrated, you find that the sensual or the imaginative faculty has alone been excited, and has galloped off with that which was intended for the intellect. If persons are examined as to a particular point of the lecture, they are apt to say: "Well, that is just what I wanted to know; would you explain it?" It would seem that it is a great mistake to excite marvellousness or our external senses very vividly, when we desire to concentrate the intellectual faculties. That breathless silence, with eyes and mouth open, that "_intenti que ora tenebant_" condition, excited by marvellousness, is very well for the story of Æneas, or Robinson Crusoe; but it is out of place, when we are endeavouring to augment our intellectual possessions.