MEMOIR OF JOHN HUNTER. 
79 
® owed his professional success ; besides being se- 
®<=ted by Mr Hunter as executor over that pro- 
perty which had absorbed his fortune, and to which, 
^ the anticipated monument of bis posthumous 
Jhnie, he had devoted the indefatigable exertions of his 
* ® > besides being appointed to the honourable of- 
of keeper of his relative’s museum, and finally, 
of its Trustees, for the public interest, Sir Eve- 
unfortunately for liimself, determined at all 
*^®hs to become an author. He was long one of 
Vice-Presidents of the Royal Society, and one 
its most unwearied and voluminous contributors, 
subjects connected with Natural History; he was 
^'so a lecturer on Comparative Anatomy, and pub- 
*h^'l, at various times, several splendid volumes on 
most popular and captivating science; and the 
’futerials of these volumes and papers in the Philo- 
***Phical Transactions, which astonished Europe, 
®®tuetimes by their originality, and still more by 
multiplicity, were clandestinely, and without 
Acknowledgment, pilfered from Mr Hunter's ma- 
^Ascripts. It is impossible to conceive a more ex- 
^‘'Aordinary infatuation. His base conduct was sus- 
***'^‘6(1 at the time, and the fact of the spoliation, as 
A'ell as the desperate resource to which he betook him- 
' iu order to destroy the means of his detection, 
Ai'e been irrefragably established before a Commis- 
A'un of Parliament. Thus, Mr Clift, the present 
A^assuming and devoted keeper of the museum, long 
® Assistant and friend of Sir Everard, being inter- 
