Obituary. 391 



natural history, there is a claim for justice due to his memory. He was 

 the intimate associate of many of the oldest and most distinguished of 

 our members ; and there are some around me who unquestionably must 

 have looked on the unkindly feelings cherished towards him of late years 

 with deep regret, and who, without being blind to the errors of judgment 

 he may have committed, still feel that those errors did not implicate his 

 integrit}', and that, considering his contributions to the stock of our know- 

 ledge in horticulture, botany, and zoology, and the kindliness of his 

 nature in promoting the interests of those whom he had it in his power to 

 serve, the obligations of charity were lost sight of in the prejudices by 

 which he was assailed. But his exertions in the cause of science should 

 not be overlooked nor undervalued ; and any one who follows the pro- 

 gression in the developement of a more scientific system of horticulture 

 in this country, and an improved taste for the general cultivation of 

 plants, will find that his labours were productive of the best interests in 

 this department of science. His zoological studies were principally di- 

 rected to British ornithology, in which he was considered an excellent 

 authority. He had paid much attention to the changes of plumage in 

 birds, to the time of arrival and departure in the migratory species, and 

 also to the breeding and habits of domestic animals. He published, in the 

 Transactions of the Linncean Society, a paper on a new species of Gull from 

 Greenland ; and an account of the Marmots of North America, with a 

 description of three new species ; and he wrote the Zoological Appendix 

 to Capt. Franklin's Journey of 1819 — 1822. He also contributed two 

 papers on the Chrysanthemum indicum of Linnaeus, which he distinguished 

 from what he has named the C. sinense, the common plant of our gardens, 

 imported into Europe in 1789; and there is a paper to appear in the 

 forthcoming Part on the Rose found by Sherard, a genus to which he 

 had paid great attention. A friend of his has, furnished me with a list of 

 forty papers which he contributed to the Transactions of the Horticultural 

 Society ; and these may surely be regarded as proofs of the interest he took 

 in its objects and welfare. I allude to his connexion with that Society 

 with hesitation, because I am ignorant on the subject ; but I feel that the 

 claims for justice to the memory of Mr. Sabine will have greater weight, 

 if there be no disposition to conceal the acknowledged evils which arose 

 from his want of method in the management of its finances. Those evils, 

 their causes and effects, I unaffectedly regret, and I rejoice that they have 

 been remedied by the well-directed efforts of others; and, with these 

 acknowledgments, I hope I may without impropriety quote the charitable 

 sentiments of one who has not been at all times sparing of the literary 

 deficiencies of his contemporaries. Lord Jeffrey, in his notice of Rogers's 

 poem of Human Life, has this admirable passage, which I think suited to 

 the present occasion : — "When the inordinate hopes of youth, which 

 provoke their own disappointment, have been sobered down by longer ex- 

 perience and more extended views ; when the keen contentions and eager 

 rivalries which employed our riper years have expired or been abandoned ; 

 when we have seen, year after year, the objects of our fiercest hostility 

 and of our fondest affections lie down together in the hallowed peace of 

 the grave ; when ordinary pleasures and amusements begin to be insipid, 

 and the gay derision which seasoned them to appear flat and importunate ; 

 when we reflect how often we have mourned and been comforted, what 

 opposite opinions we have successively maintained and abandoned, to 

 what inconsistent habits we have gradually been formed, and how fre- 

 quently the objects of our pride have proved the sources of our shame; 

 we are naturally led to recur to the days of our childhood, and to retrace 

 the whole of our career, and that of our contemporaries, with feelings of 

 far greater humility and indulgence than those by which it had been ac- 

 companied ; to think all vain but affection and honour, the simplest and 



