XVI LIFE OF JOSHUA ALDER. 



visits during the last nine years of his life, and he was deeply 

 endeared to me, as indeed he was to all his intimate friends, by 

 the beauty of his character. He was the thorough gentleman, 

 courteous, honourable, and kind ; a most delightful com- 

 panion ; so full of knowledge of his special subjects and of 

 general information, yet so modest and humble withal ; 

 always bright and cheerful ; a hasty or unkind word never 

 escaped him with regard to another, for his was a truly 

 bene volent mind. 



During the latter years of his life his hearing partially 

 failed, and the likeness which forms the frontispiece to the 

 first volume of this work is admirable, and shows him in the 

 position with hand to the ear which he assumed in conversa- 

 tion. It was taken by Sir Joseph W. Swan, F.R.S. 



" His health, which had always been delicate, became 

 during the latter years of his life gradually more nud more 

 infirm. He was afflicted with the painful consequences of 

 prostatic disease, and within the last four or five years of his 

 life had been on several occasions in imminent jeopardy ; but 

 owing to his previous careful living, by which he had avoided, 

 as much as possible, all sources of disease, and husbanded the 

 resources of his constitution, to the skilful surgical treatment 

 of Dr. Gibb, and to the devoted and untiring care of his sister, 

 to whom he was tenderly attached, he survived to be 

 cut off by an attack of pleurisy, retaining his mental faculties, 

 and manifesting his love of Natural History, up to within a 

 few hours of his decease. His long and painful trials were 

 borne with singular Christian patience, meekness, and 

 philosophy." 



So long as health permitted he had been a regular attendant 

 and communicant at St. Nicholas Church, now the Cathedral 

 of Newcastle. When seized with the attack of pleurisy, his 

 sister at his request wrote to ask me to come and visit him 

 ministerially. It was my privilege to do this and to administer 

 to him the Holy Communion shortly before his death, which 

 took place on the 21st of January, 1867, in the seventy- 

 fifth year of his age. 



His sister, whose chief thought in life had been the loving 

 care of her brother, was never well subsequent to his death, 

 but lingered on until the 7th of June, 1881, when she died at 

 85 years of age. 



A. M. NORMAN. 



