This he performed in a perfunctory fashion that did not please the Council, and difficulties arose between that body and their distinguished servant which time only rendered more acute. It may be that the Council were not sufficiently sensible of the honour reflected upon the college by possessing ‘the first anatomist of the age’; and Owen, on his side, may have been too fond of doing work which brought ‘grist to the mill,’ and applause, and troops of friends, without being directly connected with the college. However this may have been, it is beyond dispute that Owen’s removal, in 1856, to the British Museum, was a fortunate solution of a difficulty which otherwise would probably have ended in an explosion. It has been already mentioned that when the Hunterian Museum was entrusted to the care of the College of Surgeons it had been stipulated that its contents should be illustrated by an annual course of twenty-four lectures. Up to 1836 this course had been divided between the professors of anatomy and surgery; but in that year Owen was appointed first Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. To the last days of his life he constantly referred to the pleasure which this appointment gave him when first conferred upon him; nor did this feeling wear off as time went on. He gave his lectures regularly, with the same keen interest and thoroughness of preparation, down to 1855. At first he confined himself strictly to his prescribed subject; but gradually he widened his field, and introduced whatever views or subjects happened to be interesting him. Most of the lectures were worked up into books afterwards. He was an admirable lecturer—in fact, he was better as a lecturer than as a writer; for it must be confessed that his scientific style is often pedantic and cramped, and he seems to use words rather for the sake of concealing his thoughts than of imparting them. It is interesting to learn what pains he took with his early lectures—how he rehearsed them to his wife, or to a friend, till he got used to the work, and could estimate exactly how much would fill the allotted hour. We cannot refrain from quoting Mrs Owen’s account of the first lecture: ‘So busy all the morning; had hardly time to be nervous, luckily for me. R. robed in the drawing-room, and took some egg and wine before going into the theatre. He then went in and left me. At five o’clock a great noise of clapping made me jump, for I timed the lecture to last a quarter of an hour longer; but R., it seems, cut it short rather than tire Sir Astley Cooper too much. All went off as well as even I could wish. The theatre crammed, and there were many who could not get places. R. was more collected than he or I ever supposed, and gave this awful first lecture almost to his own satisfaction! We sat down a large party to dinner. Mr Langshaw and R. afterwards played two of Corelli’s sonatas’ (i. 109).