1846.] Ijinnean Society. i299 



Hospital. Mr. Barron Field was lineally descended in the sixth de- 

 gree from Oliver Cromwell ; his grandfather, Mr. John Field, having 

 married Anne, the daughter of Thomas Cromwell, who was grandson 

 of Henry Cromwell, Lord Deputy of Ireland, the younger son of the 

 Protector. Mr. Barron Field was educated for the profession of the 

 law, and called to the bar by the Honourable Society of the Inner 

 Temple. In 1811 he published an 'Analysis of Blackstone's Com- 

 mentaries,' which has become a standard work for the use and in- 

 struction of students. In 1816 he was appointed Judge of the Su- 

 preme Court of New South Wales, and continued to exercise the 

 duties of that office till 1824 ; when, on a change in the Charter of 

 Justice for that colony, he relinquished his appointment and returned 

 to England. Early in 1829 he received from Government the ap- 

 pointment of Chief Justice of Gibraltar, which he held until ill-health 

 obliged him to retire and return to his native country. In both 

 these distant appointments Mr. Barron Field applied himself to what 

 was always with him a favourite relaxation, the study of botany. In 

 New South Wales he availed himself of the talents of Mr. Lewin, 

 the distinguished painter of natural history, and formed a pleasing 

 collection of drawings of Botany Bay plants ; and his garden at 

 Gibraltar, situate at nearly the most southern point of Europe, ex- 

 hibited fine specimens of geraniums, cacti and other beautiful plants, 

 flourishing in an almost natural state. Mr. Barron Field also dedicated 

 much of his leisure to the critical perusal of the early English dra- 

 matists and poets ; and latterly attached himself to the Shakspeare 

 Society, of which he was chosen one of the Council, and for which 

 he edited several old dramas. He died on the 11th of April 1846, in 

 his 60th year, at Torquay in South Devon, where he had resided for 

 the last two years. 



During his residence in New South Wales he published a small 

 volume of poems, the first that had ever been printed in that colony, 

 which he subsequently included in a collection of ' Memoirs on New 

 South Wales,' containing, among several geographical papers of in- 

 terest, some notes by Allan Cunningham on the Botany of New Hol- 

 land. He became a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1825. 



The Rev. Thomas Gisborne, Prebendary of Durham, a name distin- 

 guished in the literature of our country, was attached from early life 

 to the pursuit of natural history, to which his ' Rural Walks,' first 

 published in 1795, bear in many passages ample testimony. It is 

 not necessary to speak here, and indeed it would be out of place to 

 do so, of the value of his ethical and religious writings ; but he well 

 deserves mention as one of the most zealous collectors of rare Bri- 



