LECTURE V. 1<J9 



I WHS acquainted with Mr. Hunter at a 

 period of his life when he must have 

 greatly interested any one, who duly appre- 

 ciated the results of his talents and labours, 

 or who had any sympathy for the highly 

 susceptible mind of genius, rendered still 

 more so by excess of exertion, and the per- 

 turbed feelings incident to bodily disease. 

 He seemed to me conscious of his own de- 

 sert, of the insufficiency and uncertainty of 

 his acquirements, and of his own ina- 

 bility readily to communicate what he knew 

 and thought. He felt irritated by the op- 

 position he had met with in establishing 

 his opinions ; and still more by finding 

 when he had surmounted this difficulty, 

 that those opinions were, by the malice of 

 mankind, ascribed to others. All which, 

 I think, may be fairly inferred from a single 

 sentence he one day addressed to me : " I 

 know, I know," said he, " I am but a pigmy 

 in knowledge ; yet I feel as a giant, when 

 compared with these men." It interested 

 me to find amongst the manuscripts to which 

 I so frequently refer, a long extract from a 

 French author, who was said to have taught 



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