S08 Obituary :•— Sir J. E. Smith. 



up to the day of his decease (though often impeded by sickness), with 

 unabated zeal and success in the advancement of his favourite science ; 

 the fourth volume of his "English Flora" having been published but 

 a few days before his death. The former volumes of this masterly 

 work have been noticed by us on their publication *. At the close 

 of the volume which has just appeared, are the following remarks, 

 which will now be read with melancholy interest by the friends 

 and admirers of the much lamented author. 



u Several circumstances have caused a long delay in the publica- 

 tion of the present volume, which, if their recurrence should not be 

 prevented, may render the completion of the work, according to its 

 original plan, very precarious* In the mean while, the number of 

 volumes originally proposed is now finished, and the first twenty- 

 three Classes are completed, as well as the first Order of the twenty- 

 fourth, Cryptogamia Filices, the only one that required more study 

 and emendation than it has hitherto received. 



" Of the remaining Orders, the Musci have been detailed in the 

 Latin Flora Brltannica and Compendium of the author, as well as in 

 his English Botany ; and by other well-known writers, in two editions 

 of the Muscologia Britannica, and the Muscologice Hibernicce Spicile- 

 gium. The monograph of Dr. Hooker on British Jungermannice, 

 which, with their allies, constitute the next Order to the Musci, diffuses 

 a new light over the whole of that Order. The works of Mr. Dawson 

 Turner on Fuci, and of Mr. Dillwyn on Conferva?, have gone far to 

 exhaust the species of those tribes ; an application of scientific prin- 

 ciples to the settlement of their genera being all that is wanting. The 

 Lichen family, under the controul of the great Acharius, assumes the 

 dignity of an entire and well-arranged Order. The Fungi, better 

 discriminated by Withering than by most popular writers, and well 

 explained by the figures of the excellent and lamented Sowerby, are, 

 in their minutest details, exquisitely illustrated by the Cryptogamic 

 Flora of the ingenious Dr. Greville, and the accurate publications of 

 Mr. Purton. These, marshalled by the aid of the learned Persoon 

 and others, might possibly have proved less obscure than heretofore. 

 This tribe indeed leads the botanist to the end of his clue, and leaves 

 him in palpable darkness, where even Dillenius was bewildered. 



f* All these subjects, if not yet brought into perfect daylight, might 

 well, by the help of those brilliant northern lights, Acharius, Fries, and 

 Agardh, have been made more accessible to the student, and more 

 instructive to systematic botanists, by one long accustomed to their 

 contemplation in the wild scenes of Nature, and not unfurnished with 

 remarks of his own. If our bodily powers could keep pace with our 

 mental acquirements, the student of half a century would not shrink 

 from the delightful task of being still a teacher ; nor does he resign 

 the hope of affording some future assistance to his fellow-labourers, 

 though for the present, "a change of study," to use the expression of 

 a great French writer, may be requisite j\ by way of relaxation and 

 epose." 



* See Phil. Mag. vol. Ixvii. p. 60. 



L. Jfh 



