Unfortunately the characters of the leaders, with the exception of Monro, were not calculated to temper this zeal with discretion, or throw a veil of decency over the transactions of low men, which, however justified, as many said, by the necessities of science, were hostile to the instincts of nature, and fearfully resented by the feelings of relatives. Liston was accused, whether justly or not, of wiling patients from the Infirmary, to set off by his brilliant operations the imperfections of the regular surgeons of that institution; and great as he was in his profession, it is certain that he wanted that simplicity and dignity of character necessary to secure to him respect in proportion to the admiration due to his powers. But Knox was a man of a far more complex organisation, if it was indeed possible to analyse him. A despair to the physiognomist who contemplated his rough irregular countenance, with a blind eye resembling a grape, he was not less a difficulty to the psychologist. There seemed to be no principle whereby you could think of binding him down to a line of duty, and a universal sneer, not limited to mundane powers, formed the contrast to an imputed self-perfection, not without the evidence of very great scientific accomplishments. Even before he took up Barclay's class he was damaged by a story which went the round of the public, and was brought up against him at the time of his great occultation. On returning from the Cape, where he had been attached as surgeon to a regiment, he was one day met by his old teacher, Professor Jameson, who, after a kindly recognition in his own simple way, inquired what had been his pursuits when abroad. "Why," replied Knox, with one of these expressions of an almost unreadable face--something between a leer and overdone sincerity--"why, I was busy in your way,--keen in the study of natural history. No place in the world excels the Cape for curious objects in that department; will you believe it, Professor, I have made an extraordinary discovery?" "Discovery! ah, you interest me." "And well I may," he continued, as the light of the one orb expressed the new-born zeal of the naturalist. "I have found a new species of animal. Yes, sir, altogether new, and at a world's-wide distance from any congeners with which you are acquainted--quite an irreproducible phoenix." "Then we must identify it with your name,--some adjective connected with night, but not darkness." "And that I have done, too," continued the naturalist. "Why, then, the description will form an excellent article for our journal. I could wish that you write it out and send it to me. It will be something grand, to shew the Southerners we are _en avant_." "I will do it," was the reply; "and you shall have it for the next number."