96 



MEMOIR OF THE LATE ME. JOHN JU3T, OF BURY. 



o'clock, to pursue his favourite study of botany, not from 

 books, but from nature. So thoroughly had he botanised the 

 district, that there was not a habitat of any plant at all rare, 

 within many miles of Kirkby Lonsdale, with which he was 

 not well acquainted. He examined and named every plant 

 himself, and in after years, whenever teaching botany, he 

 made his pupils do this ; urging that unless they acquired 

 this habit, instead of trusting to others, or to books or 

 engravings, they would never make sound botanists. As a 

 young man, he was very fond of athletic and field sports ; was 

 a stalwart wrestler, an excellent shot, and a most skilful and 

 successful angler. While yet a very young man, circum- 

 stances, to which it is unnecessary to allude, closed his con- 

 nection with the grammar school ; and he remained some 

 years in Kirkby Lonsdale as a private teacher, dividing his 

 time between his pupils and his studies, which were already 

 multifarious. He was a very early riser, and thus secured 

 many hours of uninterrupted reading, before his daily pro- 

 fessional labours commenced. 



Such was the smooth and even tenour of his life till about 

 the year 1831, when the friend already referred to, who had, 

 from reading with him and rambling with him, become greatly 

 attached to him, — removing from Kirkby Lonsdale to the 

 neighbourhood of Bury, and regarding that place as a wider 

 sphere for his friend's talents and exertions than the remote 

 and quiet little town where be was then resident, — induced 

 Mr. Just to settle at Bury, where he received private pupils, 

 and continued his own literary and scientific studies and pur- 

 suits with that avidity and perseverance which were amongst 

 his most striking characteristics. He was thus occupied for 

 about twelve months, when the Second Mastership of the 

 Bury Grammar School becoming vacant, he was induced by 

 friends to offer himself as a candidate, and was unanimously 

 elected, in the year 1832; and this situation he filled with 

 credit and honour during the remainder of his life. 



