was not only a great surgeon, a wise physician and a great anatomist and physiologist, human and comparative, but above all, he was a philosopher whose mental grasp embraced the whole range of nature's works, from the most humble structure to the most complex and the most lofty. He was emphatically the Newton of the medical profession, and what Pope said of that great philosopher may, by pharaphrase, be said with equal force and truth of Hunter:

"Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said 'Let Hunter be,' and all was light." Hunter is peerless in the history of British surgery; and after the lapse of nearly a century the profession turns to his memory with increased reverence for his transcendent genius, his matchless ability, and his unequalled services. To say that he was simply the founder of scientific surgery would fall far short of his great deserts; to do him full justice we must add that he was the father also of scientific zoology and of comparative physiology.GROSS, S. D., 1881, John Hunter and his Pupils, pp. 9, 10.

Medical science owes much to John Hunter, who by his researches in animal and vegetable Physiology, made a vast number of discoveries, which, considered singly, are curious, but which, collectively, constitute an invaluable body of new truths. His museum, at the time of his death, contained upwards of ten thousand preparations illustrative of the phenomena of nature. His great object was to show that nature is a vast and united whole, that nothing is irregular, that nothing is perturbed, that in every change there is order, that all things are done according to never-failing law. WELSH, ALFRED H., 1883, Development of English Literature and Language, vol. II, p. 187.

The genius of one man-John Huntercreated English pathology, and took it at once almost to the highest position, for he fortified it with clinical, anatomical, and experimental observations which are. unasailable when they are combined. John Hunter was in some respects even more remarkable than William, his elder brother. He possessed greater singleness of purpose, and therefore greater concentration, greater depth of knowledge, greater determination, and that minute

attention to detail associated with the power of generalisation which only coexist in the highest intellects.-POWER, D'ARCY, 1896, Social England, ed. Traill, vol. v, p. 423.

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It is impossible to include in one view the multitudinous forms of Hunter's work; you cannot see the wood for the trees. physician, surgeon, and pathologist, all at He was anatomist, biologist, naturalist, once, and all in the highest. Nor is it possible to reproduce the lights and shadows of that aspect of his life which was not turned toward science. He is like Vesalius; he made his name immortal by the labour of his own hands outside the sphere of surgery. Apart from all his hospital and private practice, and all his writing and lecturing, the actual manual work that he accomplished in dissections and post-mortem examinations is past all telling. Twelve years before he died, at Captain Donellan's trial, he was asked, "You have been long in the habit of dissecting human subjects; I presume you have dissected more than any man in Europe?" and he answered, "I have dissected some thousands during these thirtythree years." His dissections of animals must also be reckoned in thousands. erary work was uncongenial to him, and against the grain; he took no pleasure in style and no pains over spelling, submitted his writings to the corrections of his friends, adopted at their suggestion Greek words, and that most foolish phrase "materia vitæ diffusa." But in anatomy and experiment he had the strength and patience of ten; and Clift often saw him, in his old age, standing like a statue for hours over some delicate bit of dissection. The whole output of his working life is fourfold-literary, surgical, anatomical, physiological and experimental; but the multiplication together of these factors does not give the whole result of his work. He brought surgery into closer touch with science. Contrast him with Ambroise Paré, a surgeon in some ways like him, shrewd, observant, ahead of his age; the achievements of Paré, side by side with those of Hunter, are like child's play in comparison with the serious affairs of men; Paré advanced the art of surgery, but Hunter taught the science of it. PAGET, STEPHEN, 1897, John Hunter (Masters of Medicine), pp. 220, 233.

glance; an innate sagacity, that saved the trouble of intense application; and an irresistible stream of eloquence, that flowed pure and classical, strong and copious, reflecting in the most conspicuous point of view the subject over which it rolled, and sweeping before it all the slime of formal hesitation and all the intangling weeds of chicanery.-SMOLLET, TOBIAS GEORGE, 1763-65, History of England, Reign of George II.

Our language has no term of reproach, the mind has no idea of detestation, which has not already been applied to you, and exhausted. Ample justice has been done. by abler pens than mine to the separate merits of your life and character. Let it be my humble office to collect the scattered sweets until their united virtue tortures the sense. Yet you continue to support an Administration which you know is universally odious, and which on some occasions you yourself speak of with contempt. You would fain be thought to take no share in government, while, in reality, you are the mainspring of the machine. Here, too, we trace the little, prudential policy of a Scotchman. Instead of acting that open, generous part, which becomes your rank and station, you meanly skulk into the closet and give your Sovereign such advice as you have not spirit to avow or defend. You secretly engross the power while you decline the title of minister; and though you dare not be Chancellor, you know how to secure the emoluments of the office. Are the seals to be forever in commission, that you may enjoy five thousands pounds a year. -JUNIUS, 1770, Letter to Lord Mansfield, Nov. 14.

At Lady Colvill's, to whom I am proud to introduce any stranger of eminence, that he may see what dignity and grace is to be found in Scotland, an officer observed, that he had heard Lord Mansfield was not a great English lawyer. JOHNSON. "Why, Sir, supposing Lord Mansfield not to have the splendid talents which he possesses, he must be a great English lawyer, from having been so long at the bar, and having passed through so many of the great offices of the law. Sir, you may as well maintain that a carrier, who has driven a packhorse between Edinburgh and Berwick for thirty years, does not know the road, as Lord Mansfield

does not know the law of England. BOSWELL, JAMES, 1785, The Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, Nov. 11-20, ed. Hill, vol. v, p. 450.

I cannot recollect the time, when, sitting at the table with Lord Mansfield, I ever failed to remark that happy and engaging art, which he possessed, of putting the company present in good humour with themselves; I am convinced they naturally liked him the more for his seeming to like them so well: this has not been the general property of all the witty, great, and learned men; whom I have looked up to in my course of life. Lord Mansfield would lend his ear most condescendingly to his company, and cheer the least attempt at humour with the prompt payment of a species of laugh, which cost his muscles no exertion, but was merely a subscription that he readily threw in towards the general hilarity of the table. He would take his share in the small talk of the ladies with all imaginable affability; he was in fact, like most men, not in the least degree displeased at being incensed by their flattery.-CUMBERLAND, RICHARD, 1806, Memoirs Written by Himself, vol. II, pp. 344, 346.

In private Lord Mansfield appears to have been much and justly beloved. His moral character was blameless. In his friendships he was warm and constant; in his charities judicious and discriminating, not bestowing small sums to relieve himself from present importunities, but assisting in a more substantial manner those who were capable of benefiting by such kindness. In society and especially at his own table, he was remarkable for the liveliness and intelligence of his conversation, in which, however, he never indulged to the exclusion of others. One of his most distinguishing characteristics was the decorum and propriety that pervaded not only his actions but his manners, his personal appearance and even his domestic. establishment, in every department of which good sense and good taste were seen conjoined. Lord Mansfield's features were regular and expressive, and his presence graceful and dignified.-ROSCOE, HENRY, 1830, Eminent British Lawyers, p. 224.

In closeness of argument, in happiness of illustration, in copiousness and grace of diction, the oratory of Murray was unsurpassed; and, indeed, in all the qualities

which conspire to form an able debater, he is allowed to have been Pitt's superior. When measures were attacked, no one was better capable of defending them; when reasoning was the weapon employed, none handled it with such effect; but against declamatory invective his very temperament incapacitated him from contending with so much advantage. He was like an accomplished fencer, invulnerable to the thrusts of a small sword, but not equally able to ward off the downright stroke of a bludgeon.-WELSBY, W. N., 1846, Lives of Eminent Judges of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, p. 392.

Even the learned on the continent of Europe, who had hitherto looked upon English lawyers as very contracted in their views of jurisprudence, and had never regarded the decisions of our courts as settling any international question, acknowledged that a great jurist had at last been raised up among us, and they placed his bust by the side of Grotius and D'Aguesseau. In his own lifetime, and after he had only a few years worn his ermine, he acquired the designation by which he was afterwards known, and by which he will be called when, five hundred years hence, his tomb is shown in Westminster Abbey-that of "THE GREAT LORD MANSFIELD." Lord Mansfield

must, I think, be considered the most prominent legal character, and the brightest ornament to the profession of the law, that appeared in England during the last century. CAMPBELL, JOHN LORD, 1849, Lives of the Chief Justices of England, vol. II, pp. 397, 562.

At the bar his mere statement of a case, by its extreme lucidity, was supposed to be worth the argument of any other man. As a statesman his fame is tarnished by his blind adhesion to the policy of coercing America, nor is his name associated with any statute of firstrate importance. Macaulay terms him, however, "the father of modern toryism, of toryism modified to suit an order of things in which the House of Commons is the most powerful body in the state." As a judge, by his perfect impartiality, inexhaustible patience, and the strength and acumen of his understanding, he ranks among the greatest who have ever administered justice. Such was his ascendency over his colleagues, that during the first

The Reports of Burrow, Cowper, and Douglass contain the substance of Lord Mansfield's judicial decisions; and they are among the most interesting reports in the English law. We should have known but very little of the great mind and varied accomplishments of Lord Mansfield if we had not been possessed of the faithful reports of his decisions. It is there that his title of the character of "founder of the Commercial Law of England" is verified. KENT, JAMES, 182654, Commentaries, vol. I.

If we possess hardly any remains of Lord Mansfield's speeches at the bar or in parliament, we have considerable materials from which to form an estimate of his judicial eloquence. The Reports of Sir James Burrows are carefully corrected, to all appearance; probably by the learned Judges themselves. Many of the judgments of the Chief Justice are truly admirable in substance, as well as composition; and upon some of the greater questions, his oratory rises to the full height of the occasion. It would be difficult to overrate the merit of the celebrated address to the public, then in a state of excitement almost unparalleled, with which he closed his judgment upon the application to reverse Wilkes's outlawry. elegance of composition, force of diction, just and strong but natural expression of personal feelings, a commanding attitude of defiance to lawless threats, but so assumed and so tempered with the dignity which was natural to the man, and which here as on all other occasions, he sustained throughout, all render this one of the most striking productions on record.BROUGHAM, HENRY LORD, 1839-43, Historical Sketches of Statesmen who Flourished in the Time of George III.

Great

Though, besides the three judges whom