as well as the largeness and solidity of the basis on which the superstructure of his knowledge was reared, and the chaste and symmetrical elegance by which the whole was so characteristically adorned.—And since the general subject of talents, acquirements, and character has thus come before us, it may be as appropriate here as at any subsequent point in his remaining course, to introduce such remarks regarding it as now suggest themselves; the practice being one which has never been congenial to my own feelings of returning upon such ground after the solemnities of the dying hour have been depicted, and the curtain has dropped upon the closing scene of life.

The amount of his general information was surprising; information, a large proportion of which was of a description not to be derived from books, but, by whomsoever possessed, is, in a great degree, the result of an ever-observant activity of mind, which, kept in exercise by an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, marks with eagerness every fact and every process, whether in nature or in art, that comes incidentally, or that can be brought by an effort, under its notice,-and which, in the ordinary intercourse of life, takes all with whom it comes into contact in their own departments, and, by a felicitous tact, draws from each the information he is, professionally or otherwise, best qualified to impart, and thus at once gratifies the companion, however accidental and brief the interview, and derives advantage to itself. This incessantly active spirit of observation and inquiry, associated with quickness of apprehension, retentiveness of memory, and readiness of appropriate re-production, contributed greatly to the extraordinary conversational powers of our departed friend. There was in these a fascinating charm, of which they only can form an idea who enjoyed the privilege of his company in small and familiar parties, where he felt himself at his ease, where the pulse of friendly feeling beat free and strong, where the stream of conversation flowed without factitious impulse, varying its channel in inartificial windings as the suggestions of different minds gave it its natural and easy turns, sometimes deeper and graver, sometimes shallower and more mirth

ful, as subjects and circumstances directed. Then he was delightful. A few hours of such society was a treat of which the exquisite relish was not soon to be lost. When in comfortable health, or overcoming the depressing influence of morbid suffering by the counteraction of an affectionately social and buoyant spirit, he was the life and the charm of the social circle. On such occasions, the varied stores of his richly furnished mind were often strikingly displayed,—and displayed without display,-never with art, never with effort, -the art of those who are ever studiously on the watch for an opening at which they may thrust in a favourite topic, and the effort of those who, having succeeded in the attempt, expend all that they know in set and laboured speeches, in which self, instead of being concealed in the subject, is solicitously prominent, and which are the very bore of social enjoyment. Of every thing of this kind his indignant nausea was extreme. He was no monopolist of conversation. He neither aspired at being sole speaker, nor chief speaker. He gave it its turn, or he took the turn given to it, with the same unaffected readiness and grace,-leading or following, as it might happen,-drawing out others, or drawn out himself. He alternately imparted information and elicited it; and in the very eliciting of it he imparted it, showing how instantly and how perfectly he could make what was elicited his own, and follow out facts and ideas to applications and uses new even to the mind from which he had drawn them. On all subjects he was at home, or, with the quickness of intuition, made himself at home,-even the inquiries of his curiosity indicating the extent of his knowledge. He could pass, by the most rapid transitions, from subject to subject; -and whether he spoke of the most ordinary or the most abstruse, there was a rapidity of conception, an originality and diversity of thought, and a varied appropriateness of diction, elegant without ostentation, familiar without meanness, and every word and phrase the best that could be chosen without the appearance of selection, such as astonished strangers, and gave ever fresh delight to familiar friends. There was the sparkling of wit,-and the playfulness of humour,

and the happy hits of innocuous raillery,-and the gravity of serious reflection, and the pathos of exquisite sensibility,and the vivacity of graphic anecdote,—and the eloquence of picturesque description, whether of natural or moral scenery, -and the accuracy and clearness of scientific statement,and the lofty flights of fancy,—and the quick and penetrating pursuit, apprehension, and hair-splitting dissection of some abstract nicety of metaphysics,-all blending in rapid and returning succession, according as the different members of the social coterie might, purposely or accidentally, supply the varied impulse.

But the reader would be very wide of the truth, were he, from any such description, to admit the surmise that Mr. M'All's information, though extensive and diversified, was superficial. I am aware there are some who, possessing a little knowledge on almost every subject, have at the same time the knack of making that little go a great way. These are either clever men, who, glorying in their cleverness, have despised labour and laughed to scorn the plodding drudge,— or men who have no taste for knowledge save for the purposes of self-display, and who find on the surface enough wherewith to show off in all ordinary society.-Far different from either was the subject of our memoir. His thirst was for the knowledge itself; and it was insatiable. He never skimmed, but when the cream was on the surface. He was not a man of specimens; he would explore the mine. He would take nothing at second-hand that he could examine for himself. He would hold his own convictions on the ground of his own investigations. He read much; he thought more. He delighted to grapple with subjects that gave scope to the energies of his vigorous mind; and, while he regarded it as equal folly and impiety to waste those energies in attempting to explore what was manifestly beyond the range of human or created intellect, he would not, by aught that came within that range, willingly allow himself to be baffled. When prosecuting his studies at the university of Edinburgh, we are informed by himself, on the authority of the Rev. Mr. Griffin of Manchester, with what intense and

"He

prolonged severity he occasionally applied his mind. "has told me," says that respected friend, in an admirable portraiture of him, forming part of a discourse delivered after his death, “that for five days and nights continuously, with "the exception only of a few hours interval, he has pursued "one topic of investigation, keeping himself awake by the 66 application of damp cloths to the head. He mentioned this "fact with as much regret as I heard it; too well knowing "that his enfeebled constitution was already giving proofs of "the tremendous wrongs it had suffered from such efforts. "An ambitious ardour fired his soul. And as a literary as"pirant, he attained his object."-Although, therefore, possessing, in the terms of the same writer, "a perspicacity that looked like intuition," he did not allow this to stand as a succedaneum for close application, in cases where such application alone could master the subject of inquiry. Where he could see to the bottom,-(and his vision could go deeper than that of most men,)—there was no need for having re course to the diving-bell; but the diving-bell, at whatever risk, he would use, rather than not reach what he wished, by his own consideration, to ascertain.

On the testimony of all who most intimately knew him, I may, without hesitation, affirm, that his learning was as profound as it was various. The extent and notoriety of his classical attainments, and acquaintance with the elegant literature of Greece and Rome, may be judged of from the fact, that at the time when the London university was established, it was the earnest desire of many of the leading dissenters that he would allow his name to be proposed as one of the examiners; and, if I am correct in my recollection of an incidental conversation with himself, an application was expressly made to him to this effect, with special reference to the "literæ humaniores."" The Latin and Greek classics -the latter in preference," are mentioned first in the enumeration of books that constituted his "habitual reading," by a friend who had intimate opportunity of knowing his tastes and habits; and the same friend subsequently adds—" I have "heard him profess that he took great delight in reading

"classical authors with a critical eye, stating that he used to "procure the worst editions he could meet with, in order to "exercise his eye and his attention in the detection of errors. "This was his practice in earlier days, in training himself to "accuracy as a Greek scholar." The general facility of acquirement by which he was distinguished included, equally with other departments, that of languages: and in addition to those of classical antiquity, he is said to have been " mas"ter of several of the primary oriental languages and dialects."† But his acquaintance with languages was not that merely of words and syntax. Here, as in every thing else, he studied in the spirit of philosophy; entering, with enlarged views and discriminative acuteness, into the questions respecting the origin of speech and writing, the history of their variations, the principles of general grammar, and the illustration of these by the idiomatic peculiarities, analogous and discrepant, of different tongues.

In the same spirit he studied all the departments of science. With faculties such as his, and delighting in their exercise, it might, without exaggeration, be said not to have been in his power to be superficial. When a fact or an idea was presented to his mind, that was in any measure new to him, he was instantly on the alert for the pursuit. His eagerness was like an instinct. He could no more forbear, than the trained hound on the starting of game. Nor could he desist from the chase, till the game was secured. And since the image has suggested itself, I may carry it a little farther. Such was the penetrating energy of his powers, and such his determination to have the mastery of whatever subject he set himself to understand to get to the very core and essence of it, that, with the two combined, he seldom failed of surpassing competitors, and discovering to those by whom the fact or the idea had been brought under his notice, further facts and ideas associated with it or arising out of it, of which they had not previously dreamed. He was, in this respect

* From an interesting communication by John Roberton, Esq., Surgeon, Manchester.

† Sketch by Mr. Griffin, Lond. Cong. Mag., for March, 1839.