877 



his time and to have died before he was sufficiently understood the 

 more I have seen, the more I have known, the more I have learned, 

 and the more I have thought, the stronger the conviction grows, that 

 I shall never look upon his like again," These sentiments and affec- 

 tions were soon to be put to a severe trial. Hunter died in difficulty 

 and debt: the sole provision for his family was his museum. The 

 executors, Dr. Baillie and Mr. Home, were young men struggling 

 against the difficulties that oppose the early progress of the physician 

 and surgeon. 



*' I was left alone," writes Mr. Clift, in the memorandum already 

 quoted from, " until the year 1800 in charge of the Collection, with 

 two gallons of spirit occasionally to keep it from decay, and with 

 seven shillings a week, — all, I was told and believed, that could be 

 spared, — at a time when the quartern loaf was, for a short period, 

 two shillings. Thus I had no obstruction to my studies, but un- 

 luckily no one to direct them. It is true, I had a large part of 

 Mr. Hunter's manuscripts put into my custody, and, having these 

 stores at my discretion, I naturally consulted them, having no other 

 books to read nor money to buy any ; and anxious to learn something 

 of the Collection left solely to my charge, I read them over and over, 

 and in this way made myself somewhat acquainted with the end 

 and object of the Collection generally, and with the history of 

 many of the individual preparations ; and every step thus acquired 

 made me desirous to acquire more." In the meanwhile. Dr. Baillie 

 gave Mr. Clift free admission to his anatomical lectures, and Mr. 

 Home (afterwards Sir Everard) occasionally employed him to assist 

 in his operations on private patients, or in the dissection of rare 

 animals. 



Mr. Hunter's premises consisted of the residence in Leicester- 

 square, a house in Castle-street, and the museum which he had built 

 in the intermediate space. The house in the square was let to 

 lodgers ; the house in the rear was inhabited by Mr. Clift and the 

 old housekeeper of the family ; and with no other aid than this, Mr. 

 Clift undertook the custody of the museum until Government should 

 determine to accept or decline the terms on which it was offered by 

 the testamentary directions of Hunter. 



The first proposition in 1794 had been ill-received by the minister. 

 " What ! give £20,000 for bottles — we want the money to buy gun- 

 powder ! " was the reply of Pitt, when the subject w^as first broached 

 to him by Banks. But Sir Joseph was not easily discouraged, and 

 his endeavours, with those of other friends of science and cherishers 

 of the memory of Hunter, were at length successful. After seven 

 years' siege of the Treasury, the Premier sanctioned the introduction 

 of a measure by which Parliament became the purchasers of the 

 Hunterian Collection for the sum of £15,000, audit was then trans- 

 ferred to the Corporation of Surgeons, in a better state of arrange- 

 ment and preservation than when it received in 1793 its last addition 

 from the hands of its immortal founder. 



I have digressed into these details in order to place in its true light 

 the debt which science owes to William Clift, and what must ever 



