1865.] OBITUARY — DR. LINDLEY. 469 



narrow-minded party. Whoever ventured to write or say anything 

 against these sages was at once a marked man. The treatment 

 which Dr. Gray received for daring to publish the first British 

 Flora, arranged according to the Natural system, is no isolated case. 

 Dr. Lindley's history,andthat of several other men of genius furnish 

 additional examples. * * * * Dr. Lindley's rise 

 in the estimation of his contemporaries, was rapid, and for more 

 than thirty years he was the centre to which botanists turned for 

 advice and help, and around which botanical science in this coun- 

 try moved; Robert Brown, his equal— or let us rather say 

 superior— in intellectual grasp, being of too retiring a disposition 

 to serve that purpose. 



Dr. Lindley's external history is briefly told. He was for many 

 years Secretary to, not to say the life and soul of, the Horticultu- 

 ral Society during its palmiest days, when botanical collectors such 

 as Douglas and Hartweg were sent out to remote parts of the world 

 when Knight and Sabine published the result of their investigations 

 and new methods of cultivation were practically and successfully 

 demonstrated at Chiswick. To his connexion with this body of 

 enlightened men is owing his conception of his ' Theory of Horti- 

 culture,' a work which has done more to put gardening on its pro- 

 per footing than any other, and which in this country went 

 through several editions, and has been translated into many Euro- 

 pean languages by men of real eminence. This same connection 

 also led him to feel acutely the want of a good weekly garden- 

 ing newspaper, such as Fred. Otto had established in Berlin 

 some years previously, and the ' Gardener's Chronicle ' was 

 the result. Dr. Lindley became the editor of the paper, and 

 held that office till the day of his death. It offered him a ready 

 field for expressing his opinions, freely criticising all that was un- 

 sound and shallow, and holding out that helping hand to rising 

 talent so shamefully withheld from him on his first entry into scien- 

 tific life. The ' Botanical Register ' offered another opportunity of 

 advancing his favorite science, by figuring and describing the most 

 remarkable new plants that came to this country. Many of our 

 garden pets, the names of which have become household words, such 

 as Fuchsias, Yerbenas, and Calceolarias, were first made known in 

 the pages of that periodical. Dr. Lindley's particular favorites, how- 

 ever, were none of the plants just mentioned, but those most singu- 

 lar of all vegetable forms the Orchids ; and it may be said that he 

 brought them into fashion. For many years he labored iuces- 



Vol. i. ff No. 6. 



