14 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF BECLARD. 



pression being the most impressive and the most energetic, 

 left in the mind of his audience the image of the object, or 

 the idea deeply impressed. He slowly prepared, and for a 

 longtime matured his lessons ; being perfectly master of the 

 subject on which he was about to lecture, he never was in the 

 least embarrassed before his pupils. He always united there- 

 suit of his own meditations, to the knowledge he had acquired: 

 he interested and captivated his hearers without having re- 

 course to a vain show of language, by which the deceived 

 multitude is sometimes seduced. 



In his last course he gave an anatomical and physiological 

 history of the nervous system ; a delicate and truly difficult 

 subject. Nevertheless, his descriptions were so very clear 

 and there was in them so much order, that it was impossible 

 not to understand his lectures. He has presented with the 

 greatest perspicuity the endless opinions advanced on this 

 subject from Praxagoras down to this present time. His lec- 

 tures were now more attractive and more instructive than 

 ever, and as if presageful of his approaching end, he always 

 lectured more than the time allotted to him, and could not 

 withdraw from that chair, which soon a funeral mantle was 

 to shade. 



If Beclard had his equals in some branches of the healing 

 art, as a lecturer he was surpassed by none ; but on the con- 

 trary he eclipsed most of his cotemporaries. He reminded 

 us of the knowledge and eloquence of Halle, and was at least 

 equal to Cuvier, whom, however, he delighted to imitate, and 

 to the height of whose reputation he, by his vast know- 

 ledge, was every day attaining. He failed only in one respect, 

 and that was, his not being able to draw, and in so doing to 

 render even more striking his descriptions ; had Beclard pos- 

 sessed this talent, he would have been the most astonishing 

 professor, that the medical sciences had ever had as their in- 

 terpreter, till the present time. 



It is not common to meet with the virtues which adorn a 

 private character united to great talents ; because ambition, the 

 ordinary source of our misdeeds, often accompanies genius, 

 and by wishing to gratify that, we are exposed to deviate 



