xxvm 



lege of Surgeons. On the last, when the great majority of those whom he 

 addressed were hostile to the views he set forth, his power of public speak- 

 ing was subjected to a test to which perhaps few men would have proved 

 equal. For the second time in his life did he on a great occasion arouse 

 the anger of his auditory, and excite against himself bitter feeling of resent- 

 ment. The opinions he expressed on certain questions which were then 

 agitating the minds of many in the profession, and the contempt with 

 which he spoke of certain existing institutions, called forth from all parts 

 of the theatre loud expressions of dissent and denunciation. Probably 

 most of those present thought that the orator would shrink from so un- 

 equal an encounter, and bow to the verdict which was so unequivocally 

 pronounced. But Lawrence never for an instant wavered from his pur- 

 pose. He, standing alone, calm and unshaken by the storm which raged 

 around him, proceeded in a strain of unfaltering eloquence to the end, and 

 concluded with a peroration of such power and beauty that those who 

 had, during the hour, been loud in condemnation, could not resist joining 

 heartily in the burst of applause which greeted the close. Undoubtedly he 

 then exhibited some of the greatest qualities of an orator. 



Lawrence was indeed richly endowed by nature, and he spared no 

 pains to turn his great advantages to good account. Throughout his long 

 life he enjoyed almost uninterrupted health ; for within not many months 

 of his death, he declared that he had never been kept from his duties by ill- 

 ness for a week together. His excellent health, notwithstanding hard work, 

 continued through so many years with scarcely any intermission, although 

 no doubt originally the result of an unblemished constitution, was yet, from 

 first to last, carefully preserved by habits of singular regularity and uniform 

 temperance in all things. No man could be less self-indulgent than he, 

 no one was ever more orderly in his work or punctual to his engagements. 

 In person too he was much admired. Above the ordinary height, elegant 

 in form, strikingly handsome, and of noble presence, few who met him could 

 have failed to be impressed. But Lawrence was still more remarkable for 

 his powers of mind. His intellect, naturally of extraordinary strength and 

 amplitude, had been very long and most industriously cultivated. Through- 

 out his life, from the time when he first entered the hospital to its close, 

 he was a diligent student, not of surgery only, in its highest and widest 

 sense, and of those natural sciences upon which it is more immediately 

 founded, but even of subjects less akin than those are to that which formed 

 the business of his life. 



Apart from all professional knowledge and skill, Lawrence was undoubt- 

 edlv an accomplished man. He was a good classical scholar, and spoke 

 fluently French, German, and Italian. His knowledge of history, both 

 ancient and modern, was extensive, and in some parts perhaps profound. 

 To the last he was true to the habit of his whole life. He not only read 

 very much, and remembered to an extraordinary degree what he read, but 

 thoroughly digested it, separating with remarkable skill the wheat from 



