president's address. 553 



completion of his and Sir Joseph Hooker's Genera Plantarum 

 drew to a close. In a, letter written in November last to me, be 

 sketched with a few words his brilliant career, which passage I beg 

 to copy with a hope that you will insert it in your Annual Presi- 

 dential Address, especially as Bentham was for a series of years 

 President of the parent Linnean Society, and I would simultaneously 

 suggest that the Linnean Society of New South Wales may elect 

 this illustrious man, who has done so much for the advancement of 

 the Phytography of your colony, an Honorary Member. 



Nov , 1883. 



" ' My principal object in now writing to you is to say, that this is — I fear 

 — the lad letter you can receive from me. For the last six months I have 

 been quite disabled from continuing my botanical pursuits and correspond- 

 ence, and I now see that I can never hope to resume them. 



" ' I first began collecting and forming my herbarium in 1818 ; my first 

 botanical work of any importance was my ' Catalogue des plantes des Pyre- 

 nees et du Bas Languedoc,' published in 1826 ; but I had already written on 

 other subjects, and from 1823 to 1828 I published more on classification, on 

 logic, law, etc., than on Botany. From 1828 to 1S33 I endeavoured to keep 

 up Botany as well as Law, which I had adopted as a profession. In 1833 I 

 finally gave up Law, and devoted myself thenceforward exclusively to 

 Botany. In 1S54 I gave over my Botanical Librai'y and Herbarium to Kew, 

 and for the next 28 years went daily down there (from London) to work, 

 devoting to it six or eight hours a day, five or six days in the week, steadily 

 and continuously, with the sole interruption of an occasional Summer 

 vacation of a few weeks. After however the tedious winter of 1882 — 1SS3 

 I broke down in my 83rd year, and have done nothing since May last. I 

 had however finished my share of the ' Genera Plantarum,' of which you 

 will have received the latest part from Sir Joseph Hooker ; — and I have 

 now only, in taking leave of you, to thank you for all the pleasure I have 

 had in my correspondence with you. 



Ever yours sincerely 



(Signed) George Bentham.' 



" The Linnean Society of New South Wales will doubtless wish 

 with me, that the sad presentiments of this great man will not be 

 fulfilled, and that from his unrivalled experience and ardour in 

 the promotion of Phytography we shall benefit until he reaches a 

 Chevreulian age." 



