"Suavis autem est et vehementer s?pe utilis jocus et faceti?."—Cic. de Orat.

Abernethy\'s humour was very peculiar; and though there was of course something in the matter, there was a good deal more, as it appeared to us, in the manner. The secret of humour, we apprehend, lies in the juxtaposition, either expressed or implied, of incongruities, and it is not easy to conceive anything humourous which does not involve these conditions. We have sometimes thought there was just this difference in the humour of Abernethy, as contrasted with that of Sidney Smith. In Smith\'s, there was something that, told by whom it might be, was always ludicrous. Abernethy\'s generally lay in the telling.
"The jest\'s propriety lies in the ear
Of him who hears it, never in the tongue
Of him that makes it,"

although true, was still to be taken in rather a different sense from that in which it is usually received. The former (a far higher species of humour) may be recorded; the dramatic necessities of the other occasion it to die with the author. The expression Abernethy threw into his humour (though of course without that broadness which is excusable in the drama, but which would have been out of place in a philosophical discourse) was a quiet, much-subdued colouring, between the good-nature of Dowton, and (a little closer perhaps to the latter) the more quiet and gentlemanly portions of Munden.

Few old pupils will forget the story of the Major who had dislocated his jaw.

This accident is a very simple one, and easily put right; but,235 having once happened, it is apt to recur on any unusual extension of the lower jaw. Abernethy used to represent this as a frequent occurrence with an hilarious Major; but as it generally happened at mess, the surgeon went round to him and immediately put it in again. One day, however, the Major was dining about fourteen miles from the regiment, and, in a hearty laugh, "out went his jaw." They sent for the medical man, whom, said Abernethy, we must call the apothecary. Well, at first, he thought that the jaw was dislocated; but he began to pull and to show that he knew nothing about the proper mode of putting it right again. On this, the Major appeared to be very excited, and vociferated inarticulately in a strange manner; when, all at once, the doctor, as if he had just hit on the nature of the case, suggested that the Major\'s complaint was in his brain, and that he could not be in his right mind. On hearing this, the Major became furious, which was regarded as confirmatory of the doctor\'s opinion; they accordingly seized him, confined him in a strait-waistcoat and put him to bed, and the doctor ordered that the barber should be sent for to shave the head, and a blister to be applied "to the part affected."

The Major, fairly beaten, ceased making resistance, but made the best signs his situation and his imperfect articulation allowed, for pen and paper. This request, being hailed as indicative of returning rationality, was complied with; and, as soon as he was sufficiently freed from his bonds, he wrote—"For God\'s sake send for the surgeon of the regiment." This was accordingly done, and the jaw readily reduced, as it had been often before. "I hope," added Abernethy, "you will never forget how to reduce a dislocated jaw."

We think that what we have said of the style of his humour cannot be very incorrect, from knowing that the impressions of one of his oldest pupils and greatest admirers were almost identical with the foregoing. I recollect it being said of John Bannister, that the reason his acting pleased everybody was that he was always a gentleman; an extremely difficult thing, we should imagine, in handling some of the freer parts of our comic dialogues. Abernethy\'s humour (exceptionally indeed, but occasionally236 a little broad) never suggested the idea of vulgarity; and, as we have said, every joke had its mission. Then, at times, though there was not much humour, yet a promptness of repartee gave it that character.

"Mr. Abernethy," said a patient, "I have something the matter, sir, with this arm. There, oh! (making a particular motion with the limb) that, sir, gives me great pain." "Well, what a fool you must be to do it, then," said Abernethy.

One of the most interesting facts in relation to Abernethy\'s lecturing, was, that however great his natural capacity, he certainly owed very much to careful study and practice; and we cannot but think that it is highly encouraging to a more careful education for this mode of teaching, to know the difficulty that even such a man as Abernethy had for some few years in commanding his self-possession. To those who only knew him in his zenith or his decline, this will appear extraordinary; yet, to a careful observer, there were many occasions when it was easy to see that he did not appear so entirely at ease without some effort. He was very impatient of interruption; an accidental knock at the door of the theatre, which, by mistake of some stranger, would occasionally happen, would disconcert him considerably; and once, when he saw some pupil joking or inattentive, he stopped, and with a severity of manner I hardly ever saw before or afterwards, said: "If the lecture, sir, is not interesting to you, I must beg you to walk out."

There were, as we shall hereafter observe, perhaps physical reasons for this irritability. He never hesitated, as we occasionally hear lecturers do, nor ever used any notes. When he came to any part that he perhaps wished to impress, he would pause and think for a second or two, with his class singularly silent. It was a fine moment. We recollect being once at his lecture with the late Professor Macartney, who had been a student of Abernethy\'s68. Macartney said, "what can it be that enables him to give so much interest to what we have so often heard before?" We believe237 it to have been nothing but a steady observance of rules, combined with an admirable power matured by study.

That which, above everything, we valued in the whole of Abernethy\'s lectures, was what can hardly be expressed otherwise than by the term, tone. With an absence of all affectation, with the infusion of all sorts of different qualities: with humour, hilarity, lively manner, sometimes rather broad illustrations, at other times, c............