MR. FRANK BUCK LAND. 819 



eye rarely missed anything. He thought that he had facts at his dis- 

 posal which would have enabled him to answer the great doctrines 

 which Mr. Darwin has unfolded. Evolution was eminently distasteful 

 to him ; only two days before his death, in revising the preface of his 

 latest work, he deliberately expressed his disbelief in it, and he used 

 to dispose of any controversy on the subject by saying : " My father 

 was Dean of Westminster. I was brought up in the principles 

 of Church and state ; and I will never admit it I will never ad- 

 mit it." 



Though, however, on such occasions as these Mr. Buckland used 

 the language of advanced Tories, he habitually shrank from political 

 discussion. He declared that he did not understand jsolitics, and that 

 he reserved himself for his own immediate pursuits. Into these pur- 

 suits he threw himself with his whole energy ; and his energy was 

 extraordinary. The greatest example of it was in the search which he 

 made for John Hunter's coffin in the vaults of St. Martin's church. 

 He literally turned over every coffin in the church before he found the 

 one of which he was in search, spending a whole fortnight among the 

 dead. He was ultimately rewarded by obtaining a grave for his hero's 

 remains in "Westminster Abbey. John Hunter was his typical hero. 

 He had pursued the studies to which Mr. Buckland also devoted him- 

 self. He had founded a great museum. He had almost originated a 

 science. Like John Hunter, one of Mr. Buckland's main objects was 

 to form a collection which would illustrate the whole science of fish- 

 culture. The museum at South Kensington, which he has left to the 

 nation, exists as a proof of his success. Inferior, of course, to the 

 similar collections in the Smithsonian Museum of the United States, it 

 forms an unequaled example of what one man may accomplish by 

 energy and industry. Thousands of persons have interested them- 

 selves in fish-culture from seeing the museum ; and the collection has 

 long formed one of the most popular departments of the galleries at 

 South Kensington. 



Energy was only one of Mr. Buckland's characteristics. His kind- 

 liness was another. Perhaps no man ever lived with a kinder heart. 

 It may be doubted whether he ever willingly said a hard word or did 

 a hard action. He used to say of one gentleman, by whom he thought 

 he had been aggrieved, that he had forgiven him seventy times seven 

 already ; so that he was not required to forgive him any more. He 

 could not resist a cry of distress, particularly if it came from a wo- 

 man. Women, he used to say, are such doe-like, timid things, that he 

 could not bear to see them unhappy. One night, walking from his 

 office, he found a poor servant-girl crying in the street. She had been 

 turned out of her place that morning as unequal to her duties ; she 

 had no money, and no friends nearer than Taunton, where her parents 

 lived. Mr. Buckland took her to an eating-house, gave her a dinner, 

 drove her to Paddington, paid for her ticket, and left her in charge of 



