Page:The Hunterian Oration1843.djvu/21

 great surgeon; besides bequeathing him 100,000 frances, his will records the honourable fact, that Larrey was the most virtuous man he had ever known.

His own escutcheon might have been saved from its darkest blot, had he always encountered the moral fearlessness of Larrey and of Desgenettes.

But I must now approach the great object which has to-day brought us together, and endeavour briefly to describe the peculiar and more prominent points of Hunter’s career.

John Hunter was born in 1728, and began the study of his profession at the age of 20. He died in 1793, leaving a reputation as a surgeon anda naturalist beyond that of any other man in the annals of fame. Some few may have been his equals, nay, his superiors, (though that is a bold word,) in either departments singly ; for excellence in both combined he stands without a rival.

He was snatched away too soon from the profes- sion which he adorned ; and if we number his years alone, his death may appear premature ; but if we adopt the theory of the Roman philosophical poet, and measure time by what has been performed in it, we might suppose that Hunter had lived an age. Half a century has now elapsed since his death, and few of his contemporaries are with us ; the voices of envy and of partiality are alike silent in the tomb, and we are called on to estimate what Hunter attempted, intended, accomplished.

The materials for our judgment are to be found