Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/321

 HIFFERNAN, 317 for a dearth of abilities, that discouraged any author of eminence from writing for them,) he undertook to give a course of lectures on the anatomy of the human body. He instantly published proposals, namely, a guinea for the course, to consist of three lectures, and the sub scribers not to exceed twenty, in order to be the better accommodated in a private room. The subscription (which was evidently given under the impression of charity) was soon filled by the exertions of his friends; and the first day was announced by the doctor's going round to the subscribers himself to inform them of it:—“This method,” said he, “I look upon as the best, as it prevents any impu tation of quacking by a public advertisement.” The room fixed on for this exhibition was at the Percy coffee-house—the hour one o'clock in the forenoon. At this hour the following gentlemen assembled;—Dr. Ken nedy, physician to the Prince of Wales, and the present inspector-general to the hospitals under the Duke of York; Mr. George Garrick; Mr. Becket of Pall-Mall; and another gentleman. They waited till two for more company, but no more coming, the doctor made his appearance from an inside closet, dressed out in a full suit of black, and placing himself before a little round table, made a very formal obeisance to his small auditory. - The company could not help smiling at this mode of beginning; but the doctor, proceeding with great gravity, pulled out of his pocket a small print of a human skeleton, evidently cut out of some anatomical magazine, and laying it on the table, thus proceeded :- “I am now, gentlemen, about to open a subject to you of the greatest importance in life—which is the knowledge of ourselves—which Plato recommends in that short but forcible maxim of ‘Nosce teipsum;’—Pope, by saying, ‘The proper study of mankind is man;’—and our divine Shak speare, by exclaiming, “What a piece of work is man how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving, how express and admirable ! In action, how 1.