jS Account of tlie late Dr. Wm. Hunter 



ba<! not tlioFe means of fiirnisliinc liinisplf 

 with such various condiments as counte- 

 ract the otherwise pooi fare he puts up with 

 'Willie on-board ship ; and which in many 

 ibips occasioned a mortality of two-thirds 

 ©f their crews. Dr. Hunter, as surgeon 

 also of the Marines, from I79i to 1806, had 

 frequent occasions to report on this dis- 

 ease, and the credit of reconiruending the 



much esfeenied as the head of his profcs- 

 tion at Boinbiiy ; "lien Patrick CopramJ, 

 tl;c first season of his professorship, va)., 

 owing to the rude behaviour of one of tli« 

 students, so much put out iu liis demonstra- 

 tion of the Problem of the Cycloid, that 

 be was obliged to give it up for that day, 

 and on the next, instead of doing it him- 

 self, he called out young Hunter, who 



means, that have since been successfully finished his task with such an address, as to 



adopted, of remedying its horrid ravages 

 This work, making a large octavo volume, 

 was published in Calcutta, 1804, dedicated 

 to Marquis Wellcsley; and two hundred and 

 fifty copies sent for sale in the Hope annual 

 pacquet of that year for England ; but Ad- 

 miral Linois captured her; and a work on 

 this subject has since appeared in France, 

 dedicated to Bonaparte. Dr. Hunter was 

 anexcellent Persian, Arabic, and Hindus- 

 tanee scholar ; which for twelve ypars of his 

 life so eminently qnaliticd him as a mode- 

 rator and judge on the annual examina- 

 tions of the students of the Calcutta col- 

 lege, and iu the distribution of the liberal 



be complimented by the professor's sayin:; 

 that he had really done it better than he 

 could himself, prepared as he had come 

 for the undertaking. And, if every class 

 at that and the King's College of Aber- 

 deen was half as prolific of useful and ac- 

 complished scholars, they might, with their 

 niouthfuls of practical philosopliy, vie of 

 themselves with the belly-fulls of' the Greek 

 and Latin of Oxford, and the »loniach- 

 fnlls of the mathematics of Cambridge ! 

 A\'m. Hunter was a native of Montrose, 

 and, with a competency of Latin, entitled 

 himself to a bursary of 4l. a year, in 

 1773-i, at the Marshall College of A ber- 



presents bestowed on those literary compe- <leen, where he took his degree of A.M. in 



titious. In natural history, experimental 

 and moral philosophy, mathematics, alge- 

 bra, and all their connected branches of 

 science, he had that knowledge which a 

 Scotch universiiy funiislies ; and which, 

 though not so proCouud in the dead lan- 

 guages of Europe as to aflbrd what Dr. 

 Johnson calls a belly-full, gives such a 

 ready mouthful, as to enable the young 

 Caledonian adventurer to make himself 



April 1777. In the mean time he was 

 studying physic under a master who, in 

 those days, was a physician, surgeon, aud 

 apothecary ; and, after an apprenticeship 

 of four yeais, got a situation on board an 

 Indiaman ; from which service he was trans- 

 feried, in 1781, into that of Bengal, where 

 his genius and learning had an ample field, 

 and fiom which his industry has produced 

 iin abundant harvest. But, though his cn- 



ahvays nseful, aud often profoundly skil- gauemcnts were always respectable, they 



lul, in whatever departments his fortune were never lucrative ; for, till he went to 



afterwards throws him ; aud tlie English Java, he held no situation that could ena- 



lostitutes, which, though a French name, ble him to save much money, and what lit- 



are close copies of those colleges, will soon tie he had saved was expended in the edu- 



enable the middling classes in England, cation of a large family of both illegitimate 



who cannot afl'ord an Oxford and Cam- and legitimate children. For thirty years the 



bridge education, to rival in philosophy wiiter of this article was his annual cor- 



their long-envied nortlie in neighbours and respondent, and his last letter was dated 



fellow subjects. In 1776 6 the writer of only a few weeks before his death. After 



this article can recollect, as his aud Wm. au absence of thirty-eight years, he hoped 



Hunter's fellow students in the Tertian 

 Class of the Mar-hall College of Aberdeen, 

 James Stephen, at present a Master in 

 Chancery, and an old di:>tingiiislit'd mem- 

 ber of Parliament, and politiral v.; iter; 

 Alexander Chalmers, the no less renowned 



to meet him and some other class-fellows 

 this summer at Aberdeen ; but what are 

 the resolves and expectations of n>aii? He 

 had at last secured himself the means, and 

 was prepari^ r to return home, and enjoy 

 that iitium cuu. di^nitatc, for which he was 



writer of the Piefaces, and elegant editor so well qualified, when he was seized with 



of the British Classics, and apconipli^hed a ft:\kT, which, after an uninterrupted set- 



continuator of British Biography; Dr. vice of ihniy-five years in India, soon put 



Alex. Gray, long au eminent physician m an end to his life. — J. R. 

 Bengal; and Dr. Heh'rus Scoit, equally 



TO CORlU:SPOXDf;N'l'S. 



Otir Supplementary Number to the Fortif-first Vohonp is published with this 

 Mn^azine, uitk uhicfi it ought to he delivered by the Booksellers. 



The damestic calamity noticed at page 81, c<,7. I, havixg fur some days diminished 

 the Editor's power of reading some of the proof-sheets, he feels it due to himself t» 

 apologize for the terrtis in which his friendly Paiisian CorrcspmideiU, at page 34, 

 eol. 1. has bec7i allowed to speak of his Wvrh ON Ji'RlFS. That Correspondent, lihe 

 manii other literary men, u-rites so illegible a hand, that it is often difficult to read 

 what he fut* urittal till it hat passed through the press. 



