350 OBITUARY. 



on the Continent. He was in consequence elected an honorary member of 

 the Natural History Society at Berlin, and of the Royal Society at Stock- 

 holm ; and the University of Erlang, unsolicited, conferred upon him the 

 degree of M. D. The diploma was forwarded to him in the beginning of 

 1795. A compliment so handsomely oft'ered could not but be gratefully felt 

 by him, but he was unwilling to assume the title which it bestowed. Some 

 of his friends, however, amongst whom Sir J. Banks was the foremost, insisted 

 on addressing him from that time as Dr. Latham. 



In 1796 he retired from business. The possession of a handsome fortune, 

 almost entirely realised during a practice of two and thirty years, was the 

 reward and testimony of his assiduity and success in the duties of his pro- 

 fession. And we beg the attention of our readers to the remarkable, the 

 instructive fact, that in the leisure hours of these few years, by pursuits 

 which constituted his relaxation and amusement amidst the fatigues of one 

 of the most uncertain and most laborious of all professions, this indefatigable 

 man contrived to establish a reputation such as few are fortunate enough 

 to obtain by the uninterrupted employments of a whole life. When it is 

 related, that, in addition to his voluminous correspondence with eminent 

 naturalists and friends on the subject of his favourite pursuits, the inspec- 

 tion of museums, and taking drawings of specimens lent to him for the pur- 

 pose, he etched every copper plate in his original work, stuffed and set up 

 almost every animal in his very extensive museum, and put together with his 

 own hands a great many of the very cases in which they were disposed, it is 

 almost difficult to conceive how he could have been, as he certainly was, one, 

 not only of the most punctual men of business, but of the most attentive to 

 all the duties and courtesies of life. 



Rorasey, in Hampshire, was chosen for the place of his retirement. It was 

 the residence of his only surviving son, and in the neighbourhood of his only 

 daughter. Here he continued, with the same unwearied eagerness, the pur- 

 suits which he had always loved and which his leisure now enabled him to 

 extend. The world knows him almost only as an ornithologist, but his ac- 

 quaintance were accustomed to consult him as one ultimately versed in all 

 the works of nature and' of art;! and his surviving relatives can shew that 

 there is scarcely a department of Natural History which might not have been 

 enriched from his original notes and manuscripts, and that many of the lead- 

 ing works of his day were deeply indebted to him for materials and revision. 

 He was also a worthy member of the Society of Antiquaries, and the noble 

 Abbey of Romsey supplied ample encouragement to an inquirer. At one 

 time he intended to have presented to the world a history of this place, which 

 he had actually completed on a very extensive scale ; but he was deterred by 

 the expense and risk of publication on a subject which possessed merely a 

 local interest, except to a professed antiquary. 



He had enjoyed a leisure of twenty years and more in affluence, when a 

 series of calamities in his family not only caused him the severest distress of 

 mind, but plunged him at the age of eighty into a state of almost utter desti- 

 tution. Happily, a home was left him in the house of his son-in-law, W. N. 

 Wickham, Esq., of Winchester. Thither he retired with his second wife 

 in 1819. He was enabled to save some of the choicest of his books from the 

 wreck of his property, and that placid disposition which characterized him 



