JOHN JOSEPH BENNETT. 101 



this day, and from the Library Mr. Bennett selected 300 volumes which 

 he presented to the Linnean Society. 



It was expected that Mr. Bennett would be at once promoted from 

 the office of Assistant-Keeper, which he had held since 1827, to that 

 of Keeper, but in the midst of his great grief he was called upon to 

 meet a strong attempt made to destroy the Department of Botany in 

 the Museum. A few years before Mr. George Bentham had presented 

 his extensive herbarium and botanical library to the country, on con- 

 dition that it should be kept at Kew at the expense of the Govern- 

 ment. The energy and perseverance of Sir William Hooker, Dr. 

 Hooker, and Mr. 13entham had speedily raised this herbarium to one 

 of great importance, and it was now determined to take advantage of 

 the death of Mr. Brown, and secure the transfer of the Banksian 

 Herbarium to Kew. With the view of ascertaining the merits of this 

 proposal, a committee was appointed by the Trustees of the Museum 

 to hear the evidence of those who advocated it. Sir Roderick I. 

 Murchison, a Trustee of the Museum and a member of the Committee, 

 took an active interest in the matter, and having carefully mastered 

 the reasons Mr. Bennett advanced for retaining the Herbarium in con- 

 nection with the Museum, he obtained some interesting facts from the 

 witnesses in his examination of them. Although Sir William 

 Hooker, Dr. Hooker, and Dr. Lindley gave their reasons in favour of 

 the removal of the collections to Kew, and Mr. Bentham wished that 

 at least the Banksian Herbarium should be sent there, the Committee 

 unanimously recommended that the collections should be retained at 

 the British Museum, and that Mr. Bennett should be appointed 

 Keeper, and these recommendations were accepted and acted upon by 

 the Trustees. This matter was a subject of great annoyance and 

 worry to Mr. Bennett, and though the attempt was defeated, he 

 always dreaded the renewal of the attack. He strongly maintained that 

 it would be a serious injury to science to separate botany from the 

 national collections of natural history and banish it from London, and 

 he was prepared to defend this position, though he naturally shrank 

 from anything like controversy. 



Two months of the autumn of 1859 were spent, with Mrs. Bennett, 

 on the Continent ; and in the following years he found his way to 

 some of the more picturesque districts of our own country, generally 

 taking up his residence in a convenient centre, from which, accom- 

 panied by his wife, day after day he would sally forth, and delight 

 himself in the beauties of the country. He had a vivid sympathy 

 with nature, and every walk gave him a joyous gratification of that 

 sympathy. His letters from Teesdale and Cornwall, from North 

 Wales and Scotland are bright with his own joy, and full of warm 

 pictures of the scenes around him. He used to say that when he 

 took up the pen to write of what he had seen he felt as if he could 

 never leave oS. His mind was richly stored with the literary and 

 historical associations connected with the localities visited, and his 

 trusty memory never failed him. He had an eye also for everything 

 eccentric or grotesque. He would with remarkable vigour of ex- 

 pression hit off the peculiarities of fellow-travellers, or expose the 

 silly fashions or absurd pretensions of those whom accident threw in 

 his way. 



