He was born in the year 1728, in Lanarkshire; and being the youngest of a family of ten, and the child of his father's old age, would seem to have been brought up with the most foolish and unfortunate indulgence. When he was only ten years old his father died; and under the charge of his mother it is probable that he was left to act as he chose, with still less restraint than ever. Such was his aversion at this time to any thing like regular application, that it was with no small difficulty, we are told, he had been taught even the elements of reading and writing; while an attempt that was made to give him some knowledge of Latin, (according to the plan of education then almost universally followed in regard to the sons of even the smallest landed proprietors in Scotland,) was, after a short space, abandoned altogether. Thus he grew up, spending his time merely in country amusements, and for many years without even thinking, as it would appear, of any profession by which he might earn a livelihood. It was, however, found necessary at last, that something should be determined upon in regard to this point; for the family estate, such as it was, had gone to his eldest brother, and the father had made no provision for maintaining John any longer in idleness. So, destitute as he was of all literary acquirements, there was no other resource for him except some business that would give employment to his hands rather than his head; and one of his sisters having married a cabinet-maker or carpenter, in Glasgow, it was resolved he should be bound apprentice to his brother-in-law. With this person, accordingly he continued for some time, learning to make chairs and tables; and this probably might have been, for life, the employment of the genius that afterwards distinguished itself so greatly in one of the most important walks of philosophic discovery,

but for circumstances which, at the time when they occurred, were doubtless deemed unfortunate. His master failed, and John was left without any obvious means of pursuing even the humble line of life on which he had set out. He was at this time in the

year of his age. His elder brother, William,

On

twentieth afterwards the celebrated Dr. Hunter, had very recently settled as a medical practitioner in London; but had already begun to distinguish himself as a lecturer and anatomical demonstrator. To him John determined to address himself. The rumour of the one brother's success and growing reputation had probably, even before this time, awakened something of ambition in the other, with a wish to escape from the obscure fortune to which he seemed destined. John now wrote to his brother, offering him his services as an assistant in his dissecting room, and intimating, that if this proposal should not be accepted, he meant to enlist in the army. Fortunately for science, his letter was answered in the way he wished. his brother's invitation he set out for the metropolis. He was now put to work in the manner in which he had requested to be employed. His brother, we are informed by Sir Everard Home, his first and best biographer, gave him an arm to dissect, so as to display the muscles, with directions how it should be done; and the performance of the pupil, even in this his commencing essay, greatly exceeded the expectations of his instructor. The doctor then put into his hands another arm, in which all the arteries were injected, and these, as well as the muscles, were to be exposed and preserved. So satisfied was Dr. Hunter with his brother's performance of his task, that he assured him he would in time become an excellent anatomist, and would not want employment. Perhaps, although we do not find it so stated by any of his biographers, he may

have felt an advantage, in making these preparations, in the habits of manual dexterity acquired during his apprenticeship to his first business.

So rapid, at all events, was the progress which he made in the study of anatomy, that he had not been a year in London when he was considered by his brother as qualified to teach others, and was attended accordingly by a class of his own. His talents, and the patronage of his brother together, brought him now every day more and more into notice. It does not belong to our purpose to trace the progress of his success after this point. We may merely remark, that long before his death he had placed himself, by universal acknowledgment, at the head of living anatomists; and was regarded, indeed, as having done more for surgery and physiology than any other investigator of these branches of science that had ever existed.

The important discoveries, and peculiar and most original views, by which John Hunter succeeded in throwing so much new light upon the subject of the functions of animal life, were derived, as is well known, principally from the extraordinary zeal, patience, and ingenuity, with which he pursued the study of comparative anatomy, or the examination of the structure of the inferior animals as compared with that of man. To this study he devoted his time, his labour, and, it may be said, his fortune; for nearly every shilling that he could save from his professional gains was expended in collecting those foreign animals, and other rare specimens, by means of which he prosecuted his inquiries. When his income was yet far from being a large one, he purchased a piece of ground at Earls' Court, in the village of Brompton, and built a house on it to serve as a place of deposit for his collections. The space around it was laid out as a zoological garden

for such of his strange animals as he kept alive. Even when most extensively engaged in practice, he used to spend every morning, from sun-rise till eight o'clock, in his museum. Yet, in addition to his private practice, and a very long course of lectures which he delivered every winter, he had for many years to perform the laborious duties of surgeon to St. George's Hospital, and deputy-surgeon-general to the army,-superintending, at this time also, a school of practical anatomy at his own house. Still he found leisure, in the midst of all these avocations, not only for his experiments upon the animal economy, but for the composition of various works of importance, and for taking an active part both in the deliberations of the Royal Society, of which he had been early elected a Fellow, and in other schemes for the promotion and diffusion of natural knowledge. He was the originator, in particular, of the Lyceum Medicum Londinense,-a medical society comprising many eminent individuals, which met at his lecture rooms, and rose to great reputation. That he might have time for these multiplied objects of attention, he used to allow himself to sleep only four hours at night, and an hour after dinner.

In order to procure subjects for his researches in comparative anatomy, his practice was to apply to the keeper of the wild beasts in the Tower, and the proprietors of the other menageries in town, for the bodies of such of their animals as died, in consideration of which he used to give them other rare animals to exhibit, on condition of also receiving their remains at their death. His friends and former pupils, too, were wont to send him, from every part of the world, subjects for his favourite investigations. "In this

retreat (at Brompton), he had collected," says Sir Everard Home, "many kinds of animals and birds; and it was to him a favourite amusement in his walks

to attend to their actions and their habits, and to make them familiar with him. The fiercer animals were those to which he was most partial, and he had several of the bull kind from different parts of the world. Among these was a beautiful small bull he had received from the Queen, with which he used to wrestle in play, and entertain himself with its exertions in its own defence. In one of these conflicts, the bull overpowered him and got him down; and had not one of the servants accidentally come by, and frightened the animal away, this frolic would probably have cost him his life." On another occasion, "two leopards," says the same biographer, "that were kept chained in an out-house, had broken from their confinement, and got into the yard among some dogs, which they immediately attacked. The howling this produced alarmed the whole neighbourhood. Mr. Hunter ran into the yard to see what was the matter, and found one of them getting up the wall to make his escape, the other surrounded by the dogs. He immediately laid hold of them both, and carried them back to their den; but as soon as they were secured, and he had time to reflect upon the risk of his own situation, he was so much affected that he was in danger of fainting.'

Mr. Hunter died in the sixty-sixth year of his age, in 1793. After his death, his museum was purchased by Parliament for the sum of fifteen thousand pounds; and it is now deposited in the hall belonging to the Royal College of Surgeons, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It is understood to contain about twenty thousand anatomical preparations, which are arranged so as (in the language of Sir Everard Home) expose to view the gradations of nature, from the most simple state in which life is found to exist, up to the most perfect and most complex of the animal creation,―man himself." The extreme beauty

to