418 SIR RICHARD OWEN. 



absence of all littleness in him is found in the fact that he 

 would receive information or take corrections even from his 

 students, saying, "I am willing to learn from any one." 



He was simple and temperate in his habits of life, and fond 

 of innocent jokes and amusements. He had a remarkable 

 faculty for languages. On one occasion, at an international 

 chemical dinner, he made speeches in five languages, — German, 

 English, French, Italian, and Spanish. In person he was of 

 middle height, with an extraordinary depth of chest, and a 

 figure massive rather than either large or stout. His forehead 

 was high, crowned with waving hair, and in his earlier days he 

 wore a mustache and small pointed beard, afterwards replaced 

 by a full beard. 



He has left very tender and affectionate memories in the 

 hearts of a multitude of students, who will remember their 

 chemical father as long as they live ; and when all of these are 

 gone, his works will still stand, his enduring monument. 



1893. Charles Loring Jackson. 



SIR RICHARD OWEN. 



When Sir Richard Owen died, full of years and honors, on 

 December 18, 1892, the last prominent representative of the 

 old school of comparative anatomists passed away. For about 

 fifty-six of his eighty -eight years he was actively devoted to 

 the science which he loved so well and served so truly. Born 

 at Lancaster on July 20, 1804, he took his medical diploma 

 at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1822, and began the prac- 

 tice of medicine. His dissections when a student had at- 

 tracted the notice of Abernethy, who procured for him the work 

 of cataloguing the preparations of the Hunterian Museum in 

 1828. The consequences of this appointment were momen- 

 tous both for him and for science. It brought him into the 

 intimacy of a relative of John Hunter, Mr. Clift, who was then 

 the chief Curator. Owen married his daughter, and thus natu- 

 rally, as it were, became the follower of the renowned founder 

 of the Museum. Hunter's mantle could not have fallen on 

 worthier shoulders. It is easy to conceive that an office so 

 attractive to an anatomist boded no good to his success as a 

 practitioner. In a few years he withdrew from the profession 

 he had first chosen, to devote himself wholly to science. In 



