NA TURE 



169 



THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 1894. 



THE BROTHERS WILLIAM AND JOHN 

 HUNTER. 



Two Great Scotsmen : the Brothers William and John 

 Hunter. By George E. Mather, ^T.D., F.F.P. and S. 

 (Glisgow : James Maclehose and Sons, 1893.) 



IF too long a time may seem to have passed away 

 before we review this handsomely illustrated volume, 

 we excuse ourselves by saying that before we determined 

 to undertake the task we would read the work through 

 conscientiously and thoughtfully from its alpha to its 

 omega, and compare it with the sources of information 

 from which it is compiled. We saw by the general tone 

 of the press that the volume was being rather roughly ! 

 treated, and hoped that some prejudice or carelessness 

 had been at work, which might be corrected. It too [ 

 often happens that treatises on science and on the 

 labours and works of men of science are merely glanced 

 at and spoken of from hastily gathered impressions 

 bearing mainly on style and manner, not on actual 

 matter of fact relating to the work and the mind that 

 produced them. It happens also, not unfrequently, that 

 in a work, difficult of comprehension at its first reading, 

 one or two reviews set the tone for praise or dispraise 

 to all others ; so that a good work may, as it were, be, 

 by accident, doomed to light or to darkness without just 

 cause. 



Let us say first then of this volume that as a work 

 it is admirably got up and illustrated. The plates, 

 whether they relate to men, buildings, or scenery, are 

 simply perfect, and the volume altogether is just such 

 an one as every scholar would be tempted to take down 

 from the shelves and read at leisure. Let us say further, 

 that through the narrative the author balances fairly 

 between the two brothers, William and John Hunter. 

 He discriminates wisely in regard to their characters, 

 and shows how largely John Hunter was dependent for 

 his success on his elder brother. But in his descriptions 

 he has, too often, adduced sayings and thoughts which 

 he has gathered from reading, and, with little alteration, 

 has transferred to his own pages as if they were 

 his own property. Thus, in comparing the two brothers, 

 he makes use of a paragraph with which the life of 

 William Hunter, by another author, is brought, in capital 

 type, to a close. 



"The brothers Hunter were twins in science, and 

 William was the first-born." 



A sentence which reads as follows, speaking also of 

 the two brothers. 



" \'erily they were twin stars of the first magnitude, 

 and William was the elder-born." 



Such variations as these give to the volume the cha- 

 racter of a compilation rather than a history, the whole 

 appearing tinged also with a sense of weariness, as if its 

 author were endeavouring to make old matter appear 

 new, only too anxious to fill up his pages. To this 

 must be added the introduction of matters almost alto- 

 gether irrelevant. For example, at pages 40, 41, 42, we 

 find a discussion, or colloquy, between Thomas Carlyle 



NO. 1286, VOL. 50] 



and Edmund Irving, with a long quotation from Carlyle, 

 interesting enough in itself, but having not the slightest 

 reference to the subject in hand. In like manner there 

 is dragged in, at page 46, a description of the Manse at 

 Mearns, where Christopher North received his early 

 education, with a somewhat similar diversion on North 

 Moorhouse, where Robert PoUok, the author of " The 

 Course of Time," was born, together with a specimen of 

 the poetry of the same poet, and a final digression con- 

 taining snatches from the Ettrick Shepherd, Joanna 

 Baillie, Prof. Wilson, and a rather long account of the 

 famous Dr. CuUen, who, although a kind of master of 

 William Hunter in his early life, is so much in evidence 

 here, as to be made subject-matter for a third short bio- 

 graphy, rather an intrusion when so much more admitted 

 of being spoken of in reference to the two particular 

 heroes of the book. 



In noticing the labours of William Hunter, Dr. 

 Mather is most at home in his description of the Hun- 

 terian Museum in Glasgow. With this palace of science 

 he is evidently well acquainted. He remembers it in its 

 old days, when it rose like an ancient temple in the 

 grounds of that memorable old college which is now a 

 railway station, and he knows it as it now stands, a part 

 of the splendid new college which, as he says, " crowns 

 the heights of Gilm.orehill." The museum, he tells us, 

 was begun for the purpose of illustrating the lectures of 

 William Hunter, and at first its chief value consisted in 

 the preparations showing the changes of the gravid uterus. 

 '' The Museum was not, however, confined," as he very 

 properly explains, " to anatomical preparations, human 

 and comparative, nor to specimens of disease merely, 

 although the collection of these was wonderful, and thanks 

 to hints from .Albinus, all are in beautiful preservation, 

 " Dr. Hunter was a man of very refined taste, and had a 

 great desire to educate the members of his own profes- 

 sion, as well as the public, in this respect, and to alTord 

 opportunity to all of acquiring a rich and varied culture. 

 William Hunter was a great teacher, and it was his 

 ambition that his works, his bequests, should live and 

 speak after him ; it is not too much to say that there 

 never has been gathered under one roof by one man a 

 collection so vast and varied, and so well calculated to 

 advance the wider culture of the members of the pro- 

 fession whose interests he had so greatly at heart.' 

 .Vnd then he adds, copying word for word from a pre- 

 vious author, whom he immediately names, but not in 

 connection with the passage : " Whether we turn to the 

 Art Department, to the books, to the coins, to the 

 natural history, or to the anatomy, there is to be dis- 

 covered treasure upon treasure." 



In the life and works of John Hunter presented 

 in this volume, we find the same kind of faults 

 as those which mark the life of William Hunter. 

 There is compilation simply as the basis of all that 

 is written, intermixed with a kind of philosophy which 

 is also often the reflex of previous authorities, with 

 more or less of acknowledgments. Much that might 

 have been introduced and descanted upon is omitted, or 

 so lightly touched as neither to be criticism nor narrative. 

 Thus the great quarrel between the two brothers, which 

 kept them practically apart for a long period, receives 

 no new elucidation, and the life of John Hunter, at Earl's 



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