LINNEAF SOCIETY OF LONDON. xlvii 



Santa Martha, in which place he was restored to partial liberty, and 

 permitted to act as a kind of garrison-physician to the dictator's 

 troops. It was not until 1829 that, after the strongest instances, 

 he was permitted to return to Buenos Ayres, when his friends 

 warmly welcomed his restoration to liberty, under the hope that 

 he would immediately return to European society. In this ex- 

 pectation, however, they were disappointed : it would appear that 

 his long residence in South America had generated a preference 

 for his adopted coimtry, in which he remained until his death. 

 This event took place at St. Erancisco de Borja, a small Brazilian 

 town on the eastern borders of Entre Hios, at no great distance 

 from Uruguay, where he had resided since 1831. He died on the 

 4th of May in the year 1858, in the 85th year of his age, leaving 

 behind him so high a character, not only as a talented and accom- 

 plished naturalist, but as an amiable and estimable man, that the 

 British community at Buenos Ayres determined to erect a suitable 

 monument to his memory. He was unquestionably one of the 

 most distinguished men belonging to what Prof, von Martins has 

 aptly denominated the peripatetic age of botany ; and his death, at 

 so great a distance both of time and space from the scene and 

 period of his active labours, warns us strongly how few are the 

 links that still remain to bind us to that interesting and important 

 epoch in the history of botanical science. 



I had written the last sentence — one as it would almost appear 

 of melancholy foreboding — on the morning of the day on which the 

 evening papers brought us the sudden and unexpected intelligence 

 of the death of Baron Alexander von Humboldt, the friend of 

 Bobert Brown, the still more intimate friend of Bonpland, and the 

 oldest survivor of that generation of inquirers into nature, who 

 commencing their investigations before the close of the last century, 

 have continued them through more than half of the present. This 

 event completing the muster-roll of illustrious names of whom 

 death has deprived us during the past year, has come upon us so 

 suddenly and so recently that I must entreat the pardon of the 

 Society if I fail to pay a fitting tribute of respect to the memory 

 of one so eminently distinguished, not only in the sciences which 

 we especially cultivate, but in every science connected w^ith the 

 great and comprehensive study of nature in its widest sense. To 

 attempt, within the short space of time which I could command, to 

 give the merest outline of his labours and of his merits, would be 

 in the highest degree presumptuous. I feel too, that the task of 

 doing justice to the character of so great a man will naturally fall 



