Page:The Hunterian oration, for the year 1819.djvu/67

Rh into oblivion. On the contrary, however, the opinions which I had promulgated were said to be absurd and untenable, and even ridiculed by a writer in the Edinburgh Review. When, afterwards, Mr. Lawrence began to lecture at the College, he adopted the same line of conduct; nor were his hostile and taunting expressions confined, as he says, to his first lectures. The theme of his exultation and raillery was introduced to enliven many others. In the published lectures will be found a varnished character of myself in which, however, I clearly distinguish one truth, that of having always acted as his zealous friend; and surely the recollection of such conduct would have induced a generous mind to have glossed over also what it might have considered as my defects. When I heard those lectures, I told Mr. Lawrence, (for I had always spoken my sentiments to him with candor,) that he seemed to me to have done a very foolish thing in attacking my opinions in a place where I felt obliged to defend them; and added, even the consideration of the impropriety of two professors in the same establishment differing with one another.