CHARACTER 223 



remember him, one gathers that Harvey was a very lovable sort 

 of man. Shy and retiring, and diffident as to his own powers, 

 with a deeply affectionate nature, he was equally prone to 

 singing the praises of his friends, and to disparaging himself. 

 " If I lean to glorify any one," he writes to William Thompson 

 of Belfast, " it is Mrs Griffiths, to whom I owe much of the 

 little acquaintance I have with the variations to which these 

 plants [the seaweeds] are subject, and who is always ready to 

 supply me with fruits of plants which every one else finds 

 barren. She is worth ten thousand other collectors." Writing 

 of Harveya, a genus of South African Scrophularineae which 

 Hooker had just named in his honour, he comments, "'Tis 

 apropos to give me a genus of Parasites, as I am one of those 

 weak characters that draw their pleasures from others, and their 

 support and sustenance too, seeing I quickly pine, if I have not 

 some one to torment." He in his turn loved to commemorate 

 his friends, or others in whom he felt an interest, by naming 

 after them new genera of plants Apjohnia, Areschougia, Ballia, 

 Backhousia, Bellotia, Bowerbankia, Drummondita, Curdiea, 

 Greyia, Mackaya, and many others. The names of some of his 

 favourite authors are similarly enshrined, as Crabbea, Evelyna. 

 Indeed, when at Niagara he saw an inscription to a young lady 

 who fell over the cliff when gathering flowers 



Miss Ruggs at the age of twenty-three 

 Was launched into eternity, 



he comments " Poor thing ! I must call a plant after her 

 Ruggia would sound well." He had indeed a love of all living 

 things. Writing to Mrs Gray on the death of her favourite 

 dog, he tells how he felt so ashamed of being so deeply moved 

 when in South Africa by the death of his pet ostrich, that he 

 foreswore any similar entanglement, and kept his vow ever 

 since. Of serious griefs he had many ; the death of several 

 beloved brothers and sisters who predeceased him, would have 

 been well nigh intolerable to him but for the profound religious 

 feeling which sustained and helped him throughout life, and 

 which robbed death of all its terrors. 



I cannot do better than conclude with some words in which 



