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logue, the deficiency of which furnished a weekly topic of censure, in a newly-established weekly periodical.
The office was accepted by Mr. Owen, happily for the cause of science, happily for the reputation of the College of Surgeons of England, and not less happily for the reputation of the great founder of the Hunterian Museum, as well as for that of Hunter’s distinguished successor, on whom I may say that the mantle of Hunter, which had been held in charge for so many years by Mr. Clift, has so deservedly fallen. The result of the labours of Mr. Clift, in conjunction with his newly-appointed colleague, was the production of two volumes in 1830 on the “morbid series.” It was then considered that the catalogues would proceed more rapidly if each person took a different subject. Mr. William Home Clift completed the catalogue of the “dry vascular and miscellaneous preparations” in 1831, and the catalogue of the “osteology ” in 1832. Mr. Clift undertook that of the “monsters and malformations,” which was printed in 1831, after which he chiefly occupied himself in collecting cases and materials from all the medical publications contemporary with Hunter, that related in any way to the morbid specimens.
The shock which poor Clift’s nervous system had sustained after his rupture with Home, and the catastrophe of the Hunterian manuscripts, had produced an almost morbid apprehensiveness of putting any description into print. He never could assure himself of its accuracy and its conformity with Hunter’s opinions. This state of indecision, and the loss of his usual clear intellectual power, increased after the fatal accident that befel his only son; and his chief literary and scientific occupations, until he retired from the College,
