A SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION.A SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTION.
Friday(further date wanting in MS.).Weekly Evening Meeting.
This Evening to the Royal Institution, to hear ProfessorOwen, 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 Chairmanfacing 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.Holdfastthink Geology Bosh, extinct Quadrupeds Monsters destroyed in ancient Times by the Heroes. Likewise the Fish Lizards and Pterodactyles Dragons,St. Georgeand the Dragon all true, andSt. Georgedid 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 ProfessorOwen'sLecture, 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 ProfessorOwenis and can tell an unknown Animal whether Bird or Beast by a single Bone, and the French may brag of MonsieurCuvier, but England have as good Reason to be proud of ProfessorOwen.
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MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF YE ENGLYSHEForty-nine Drawings byRichard Doyle, to which are added MR. PIPS HIS DIARY, byPercival Leigh.
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Transcriber's Notes:Multiple spellings not changed:"fashionable" and "fashonable"both "birthday" and "birth-day"both "Club-House" and "Club-house"both "Exeter-Hall" and "Exeter Hall"both "Pic-Nic" and "Pic-nic"both "raylway" and "raylwaye"different spellings of "street"
Multiple spellings not changed: