of the Earl of Dundonald at Culross Abbey. On 2 May 1764 he received license to preach from the presbytery of Dunfermline, and was ordained minister of South Leith on 9 Jan. 1766. In 1769 he preached in London, and declined a call from the Scots congregation in Swallow Street, Piccadilly; but in 1771 he accepted an invitation from the congregation at London Wall, and about the same time was created D.D. by the university of Edinburgh. He visited Lavater at Zurich in August 1787, to secure Lavater's assent to the publication of an English version by himself of the ‘Essays on Physiognomy.’ He officiated as chaplain to the Scots Corporation in London, and was, on 5 Aug. 1790, elected secretary to the corresponding board of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. His closing years were clouded by the loss of four of his children. He died at Bristol on 27 Oct. 1802, and was buried on 6 Nov. in Bunhill Fields. In May 1766 he married Margaret, daughter of Thomas Charters, minister of Inverkeithing, and by her, who died on 25 July 1803, he left two sons and one daughter (Gent. Mag. vol. lxxii. pt. ii. p. 1072).
Hunter wrote:
- ‘Sacred Biography,’ a course of lectures on the lives of Bible characters (vol. i. 1783, vol. vi. and last 1792); 5th edition, 1802 (5 vols. 8vo); 8th edition, 1820.
- ‘Sermons. … To which are subjoined Memoirs, Anecdotes, and Illustrations,’ 1795, 2 vols.
- ‘Sermons and other Miscellaneous Pieces,’ London, 1804 (2 vols. 8vo), posthumous, with memoir and portrait engraved by Thomas Holloway [q. v.], after a portrait by Stevenson.
Hunter's translations include:
- ‘Lavater's Essays on Physiognomy,’ London, 1789-98, 5 vols. 4to, illustrated with more than eight hundred engravings, executed by or under the inspection of Thomas Holloway. The cost price of each copy was 30l.
- Euler's ‘Letters to a German Princess on different subjects in Physics and Philosophy,’ 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1795, with original notes and a glossary of foreign and scientific terms; new edition, 1846, with notes by Sir David Brewster.
- Bernardin de St. Pierre's ‘Studies of Nature’ and ‘Botanical Harmony,’ 5 vols. 8vo, London, 1796-7.
- Sonnini de Manoncourt's ‘Travels to Upper and Lower Egypt,’ 3 vols. 8vo, London, 1799 (severely criticised by one Monk in ‘Hilaria Hunteriana,’ 4to, 1800).
- The sixth volume of Saurin's ‘Sermons,’ 1800-6, 7 vols. 8vo.
- Castéra's ‘History of Catharine II,’ 8vo, London, 1800.
In 1796 Hunter began the publication in parts of a careless ‘History of London and its Environs,’ which he did not live to complete. The publisher, John Stockdale, with the assistance of other hacks, issued the discreditable compilation as a complete work in two quarto volumes in 1811. At the request of his congregation Hunter completed and published John Fell's ‘Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity,’ 8vo, London, 1798 (another edition, 1799).
[Life prefixed to Sermons, &c., 1804; Monthly Magazine, xiv. 456; Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen, ii. 319-20; Anderson's Scottish Nation, ii. 516-17.]
HUNTER, JOHN (1728–1793), anatomist and surgeon, born on 13 Feb. 1728 at Long Calderwood, in the parish of East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, was the youngest of ten children. His father, John Hunter (d. 1741, aged 78), was descended from an old Ayrshire family, Hunter of Hunterston, and was a man of intelligence, integrity, and anxious temperament. His mother, Agnes Paul, daughter of the treasurer of the city of Glasgow, was an excellent and handsome woman. As a boy Hunter showed little taste for books, loved country sports, and being allowed to neglect school never overcame the defects of his education. When about seventeen he went to stay in Glasgow with his sister, Mrs. Buchanan, whose husband, a cabinet-maker, was in difficulties. Hunter helped him for some time in his trade, and acquired much mechanical skill. In his twentieth year he visited his brother William (1718-1783) [q. v.] in London, with a view to assisting in his dissecting room. He travelled on horseback in September 1748, and was set to work on a dissection of the arm-muscles. Succeeding beyond expectation, he was able to superintend pupils in the second season. He was very popular with the ‘resurrection-men,’ who were then essential to the anatomist, was fond of lively company and of the theatre, and was familiarly known as ‘Jack Hunter.’ In the summer of 1749-50 his brother obtained permission for him to attend Chelsea Hospital under William Cheselden [q. v.] In 1751 he became a pupil of Pott at St. Bartholomew's. In 1753 he was appointed one of the ‘masters of anatomy’ of the Surgeons' Corporation. In 1754 he entered as a surgeon's pupil at St. George's Hospital, where he was house-surgeon for some months in 1756. On 5 June 1755 he was matriculated as a commoner of St. Mary Hall, Oxford. The last entry for battels against his name in the buttery accounts is dated 25 July 1755, but his name was kept on the books till 10 Dec. 1756. In later years Hunter told Sir Anthony Carlisle, ‘They wanted to make an old woman
