This Evening to the Royal Institution, to hear Professor OWEN, the
Hunterian Professor to Surgeons' College, Lecturer on Comparative
Anatomy and Physiology, on the Nature of Limbs. To the Institution
early, to the Theatre, and there got a good Place, the Theatre already
filling and soon crammed like any Playhouse where some leading Actor
make his appearance in a great Part, Gallery and all, as they say, to
the Ceiling. The Audience sitting on semi-circular Benches covered with
red Stuff, Tier above Tier, behind the select Visitors to the Front in
reserved Chairs. A mighty droll Sea of Faces, mostly wry, with Eyes
peering and squinting, many through Spectacles, though some
well-featured, one here and there a great Head, but few handsome, Ladies
excepted, a good Sprinkling of belles, and they look mighty pretty, the
rather by Comparison with their Elders, the strong-minded Women, and the
Philosophers around them, for the greater Part to look at, as the Vulgar
Phrase is, a rum Lot. In the Centre of the reserved Seats an Arm-Chair
for the Chairman facing the Lecture Table, whereon Prints and Papers, a
Book and a Water-Carafe and Tumbler. Behind on a Showboard on the Wall
Diagrams and Plates of Skeletons of Extinct Animals, Fish, and Flying
Lizards, and a Dinotherium, and Mastodon, and Mammoth, and withal a
human Skull, the People contemplate, and the Ladies and Damsels even,
with Complacence, and to think all those pretty Creatures have Skeletons
in themselves! By-and-by at eight, enter the Chairman and take the
Chair, a fine fat portly Man with a great Jole, and solemn Look, mighty
noble, and was, a Medical Student say, an awful Swell. Then in come the
Lecturer, the Professor, to great clapping of Hands, and he make his
Bow, and begin. I mighty taken with his Discourse, and to see him point
out with a long Wand he lean upon while he lecture, the Bones and other
Parts in the Diagrams of the Skeletons behind him he Describe, and
explain how this and that Bone, the same as a human Bone, exist only in
a different Form in Animals, and strange the Pterodactyl's Wing-bone a
great little Finger. Lack to think of such Animals nothing remain but
fossil Bones, and the Animals, Geologists say, did live and die Ages
before Adam, shake some People's Faith. But Mr. HOLDFAST think Geology
Bosh, extinct Quadrupeds Monsters destroyed in ancient Times by the
Heroes. Likewise the Fish Lizards and Pterodactyles Dragons, ST. GEORGE
and the Dragon all true, and ST. GEORGE did verily slay a Dragon, and
Accounts of real Reptiles under the name of Dragons handed down by
Tradition; their Bones now dug up out of the Earth witness Legends true,
and no Fable, and reconcile Orthodoxy with Science. However he do not
say he believe they belch Fire and Smoke. So my Thoughts a little
wandering from Professor OWEN'S Lecture, to listen attentively, but the
Air so foul with much Breath and burning of Gas that I at last nearly
asleep and fain to pinch myself to keep awake. Strange, in the chief of
Chemical Lecture Rooms such bad Ventilation. But to think what a
Philosopher Professor OWEN is and can tell an unknown Animal whether
Bird or Beast by a single Bone, and the French may brag of Monsieur
CUVIER, but England have as good Reason to be proud of Professor OWEN.
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