And so forth, through all the number of such stories as used to be rife at that time, but have now died away amidst narratives of a more living interest. But towards the close of Barclay's labours, in his class the materials for such were rather on the increase, for the reason that the invasions on consecrated places kept a proportion to the requirements of an increasing class of students. Nor, when Barclay ceased to lecture, and was succeeded by Knox, did this Scotch shame undergo any diminution, if it did not wax more brazen in its features. Knox was destined, as well by his powers as a public lecturer as by his ambition and vindictive impatience of an intruder on his peculiar walk, and independently altogether of the dark suspicions which rose like thick exhalations out of the depths of the great tragedy subsequently enacted, to become a marked man, and the centre of attraction to ardent students. His ambition felt, too, the quickening spur of Liston, who, as an extra-academical lecturer on surgery, offered for even more than a national reputation. The professional emulation of these men soon degenerated into professional, if not personal hatred, scarcely alleviated by the collateral envy they both bore towards the academical professor, who, himself a good anatomist of the old school, with family honours not distinguished from a professional inheritance, could afford to view the new men with an easy if not proud disregard. With these feelings among the lecturers, we may easily fancy the almost natural effects among the students, always remarkable for devotion to their teachers. The spirit of the latter went through them like an inoculation, and, while working in them as a rancour, it took the form, as in the elders, of a professional emulation. Nay, it seemed to become almost a frenzy among them, that those of one class should excel those of another in the knowledge of the human body. Questions came to be discussed among them, often suggested by faults imputed by one lecturer to another, and the quarrels of the masters thus became bones of contention among their scholars. An unsuccessful operation would be seized on as a pretext to run down the operator; and as the anatomical books could not always, or often, settle the dispute, the area of controversy would be in the halls of dissection. In this state of affairs, it behoved that the demand for subjects, which ever since the advent of Barclay had been on the increase, should become day by day more clamant, and the number of vagabonds who betook themselves to the calling came soon to take on the form and organisation of a regular staff.