22 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [1839, 



his son, Joseph D. Hooker, was then a medical stu- 

 dent ; went to Arlary, December 26-7, to visit Arnott ; 

 stayed till the day after New Year ; thence to Edin- 

 burgh for two or three days. Greville was the best 

 botanist, but Graham was the professor, Balfour then 

 a young botanist there. Heard old Monro, Wilson 

 (Christopher North), Chalmers, Traill, Charles BeU, 

 etc., lecture. On way south stopped at Melrose and 

 Abbotsford ; coach to Newcastle, Durham (over 

 Sunday), and through Manchester, where rail was 

 taken, to Birmingham and London. Took lodgings 

 till some time in March. Dr. Boott was of course my 

 best friend there. But Hooker and Joseph came up 

 to London for a week. Hooker insisted on taking me 



O 



in hand as of his party, and so I was introduced to all 

 his friends ; took me to the Royal Society, etc. ; dined 

 one day with Bentham, to whose house I often went, 

 and who gave me a full supply of letters to the bota- 

 nists on the Continent. I worked a good deal at the 

 British Museum ; Robert Brown was very kind to me, 

 and his assistant, J. J. Bennett, very useful, putting 

 me up to all the old collections and how to consult 

 them. At Linnaean Society, thanks to Boott, had every 

 facility for the Linnaean herbarium. Old Lambert 

 too ; he had the Hookers and myself at dinner, and 

 gave me as good opportunity as he could to consult the 

 Pursh plants, etc., in his herbarium, which, not long 

 after, was scattered, but it was in his dining-room, 

 which was very much lumbered, and to be reached 

 only at certain hours. Lindley had me down for a 

 day to his house at Turnham Green, and a little din- 

 ner at the close. First visited Kew with the Hookers ; 

 called on Francis Bauer, who lived in a house near 

 the river ; found him at ninety making beautiful micro- 



