528 GEORGE BENTHAM. 



treatise upon Agriculture and Vegetation. It was from his mother 

 that George Beiithaiii early imbibed a fondness for botany. 



The early part of his life and education was somewhat eventful 

 and peculiar, and in strong contrast with tlie later. His father, 

 General, subsequently Sir Samuel Bentham, was an adept in naval 

 architecture. At the age of twenty-two he visited the arsenals of 

 the Baltic for the improvement of his knowledge ; thence he travelled 

 far into Siberia. He became intimate with Prince Potemkin, by 

 whom he was induced to enter the civil and afterwards the military 

 service of the Empress Catharine. He took part in a naval action 

 asainst the Turks on the Black Sea, and was rewarded with the 

 command of a regiment stationed in Siberia, with which he traversed 

 the country even to the frontiers of China. After ten years he 

 returned to England, where his inventive skill and experience found 

 a fitting field in the service of the Admiralty, in which he attained 

 the post of Inspector-General of Naval Works. Among the services 

 he rendered was that of bringing to England the distinguished engi- 

 neer, Isambard Mark Brunei. In the year 1805, General Bentham 

 was sent by the Admiralty to St. Petersburg to superintend the 

 building in Russia of vessels for the British Navy. He took his 

 family with him ; and there began the education of George Bentham, 

 in the fifth year of his age, under the charge of a Russian lady who 

 could speak no English, where he learned to converse fluently in 

 Russian, French, and German, besides acquiring the rudiments of 

 Latin as taught by a Russian priest. On the way back to England, 

 two or three years later, the detention of a month or two in Sweden 

 gave opportunity for learning enough of Swedish to converse in that 

 language, and to read it with tolerable ease in after life. Returning 

 to England the family settled at Hampstead, and the children pursued 

 their studies under private tutors. In the years 181 2-1 o, during 

 the excitement produced by the French invasion of Russia and the 

 burning of IMoscow, our young polyglot " budded into an author, by 

 translating (along with his brother and sister) and contributing to 

 a liOndon magazine a series of articles from the Russian newspapers, 

 detailing the operations of the armies." In 1814, upon the downfall 

 of Napoleon, the Bentham family crossed over to France, prepared 

 for a long stay, remained in the country (at Tours, Sauniur, and 

 Paris) during the hundred days preceding Napoleon's final over- 

 throw; and in 181 G Sir Samuel Bentham set out upon a prolonged 

 and singular family tour, en caiavane, through tlie we^^tern and 

 southern departments of France. To quote from the published 



