Abernethy, on the contrary, had a happy facility of expressing himself, and a power, rarely equalled, of singling out the difficult parts of a subject, and simplifying them down to the level of ordinary capacities. Hunter, though not without imagination, or humour even, had these qualities held in abeyance by the unceasing concentration of his intellectual faculty. As Abernethy used to say, "John Hunter was always thinking." Abernethy, on the contrary, had an active imagination; it always accompanied his intellect, like a young, joyous attendant, constantly lighting up the more sombre propositions of her grave companion with varieties of illustration. The most difficult proposition, directly Abernethy began to fashion it, had all its rough points taken off, and its essential features brought out clear and orderly to the plainest intellect. John Hunter, in laying down a series of facts having the most important influence in the formation of a medical science (take place when it may), was not able to keep people awake. Abernethy's treatment of the most dry and unimportant, kept his audience unceasingly interested. The obscurity of language in Hunter was happily replaced, not only by an unusual ease, but by a _curiosa felicitas_, in Abernethy. In sustained composition, Hunter was generally difficult, often obscure; Abernethy, if not faultless, always easy and unaffected. If his style failed sometimes in earnestness and vigour, it was always sincere; and whilst, though not deficient in eloquence, it asserted no special claim to that excellence, it was always pleasing and perspicuous.