The Hunterian Oration ON HUNTER AND LISTER, AND ON THE MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND: Delivered before the College on February 14th, 1913
Authors: R. J. Godlee
Journal: BMJ (1913)

that lhe does not seenm to lhave mi) distinguislhed intellectual circle wml GENTLEMEN,-The.picturewhich on these occasions hangs to us household words, if one did over tlle hlead of the orator was, as is well knowil, painted enormous amount of work wnich under peculiar--circumstances. -John Hunter was urged to into the forty-f1i7 years after he sit to Reynolds by his friends, and principally by Sharp the Mgo oI 20, with no great r the engraver, who, with strange prescience, foresaw thet gence or application.I see the st his engraving of tile.portrait would prove tQ -i--his chef common people, and hear the noisy l'oeltvre.But Hunter objected; ho thotight it almost as wagons, and the "cries of London"-t great a waste of tinle a. he did only four years later, 500,000 or 600,000 inhabitants, wlhic "when he fuiL-q Vwislied Sir Joshua and his friends at the extend beyond Old Street, Queen Sq devii when called on to take part in the funeral of this Square on the noith, "Tyburn Tree's eminent artist and delightful author."Besides, he would the west, Mile End on the east.and wx not allow tlemto pay for it, and he had always more than bridges only with the small borou enough use for his own money.A:t last, however, when enclosed by the upward loop of the le was b6 years old4 he yielded.It is easy to imagine a great isolated country town.and fr him-and with, much sympathy-fuming and fidgeting minutes' walk led to green fields and in that great-armchair, with the description of his speciand primroses and footpads.At L4 mens (on which he set great value, but which was burnt great yellow coach, which lhad crossed after his death by Sir Everard Home) at his side.Time the back of hiis hou;se leading into Cas after timlle-tlhe master tried to catch his likeness, but with-waiting for hiim, and his coaclhman w ouit success, undulie was almost giving uip in despair, whlen his two bay stallions to Ihis counitry hc suddenly on Hunter's face caine this rapt expression, as, If Leicester Square was at all in the st witlh hiis mind fixed on other things, he ceased to be it, it must have been a waste indeed.worriecd withl his surroundings.Quick as thought the Coventry Street, looking mluch as it canvas was turned upside down, and between the original Regent Street did not exist), and al< legs appeared this face, which even in the present cracked occupied only by the miansions of and faded condition of the picture has been the admlira-St.George's Hospital he would turn ti tion of succeeding generations.We have been blamed Lane, now the Brompton Road, tllroug for having .allowed it to heGome so ruined,-but possibly and trees.till he reached his destinati the way in which it was painted may-partly account for two miles from London. the disaster.. . .Pictures of the liouse shiow it as a Look at the pioture I -I have gazed at it, in season and evidently built in stages, standing in g out of season, fqr half a lifetime trying to guess what was dimensions.It looks uninteresting, I the tllought that calmed and possesserd his, regtless mind.there were caves and dens of the e And now, at last, Irheenl te know.-Fonrone thought beasts were kept anid from whiclh occurs again and again in all-'his -writings, and speaks escaped; and coppers in which the to-day from---his muenumn.to" him who grasps tile idea of could, if need arose, be quickly freed its arrangement:.What is Life! :-That mystery which strange animals roamed abouit tlle p baffled the intellect of the ancients anid thich still, pace crocodile hung, lilke a presiding saint, Professor Sclhafer, is.-waiting 'solution.Whati is Life?Within were carried out all sorts of ih Anid tben I recall bhin stra ge fotrmul.A, wihich; haunts the was to Earl's Court that he retired w]