Angnst 1, 1867. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HOBTIOULTUBE AND COTTAGE OAEDBNES. 



8t- 



Amoricana" — i. r., an Account of the SoaweeJs of North Ame- 

 rica. This work was prefaooJ by au Iiitroihiction, of which tho 

 Americans 6oou discovered tho merit. The illustrated book 

 was a quarto, and not very portable therefore, so tlmy reprinted 

 tho Introdnotion separately as a pamplilet, and of it 21), 000 copies 

 were sold ! It contains, indeed, a fine philosophy, besides 

 invaluable Reneral information on the fipcoitic suliject of Sea- 

 weeds ; and, hko all his original oompositiona, breathes 

 throughout tho reverent and religious spirit, which was one of 

 the strongest features of his character. 



It is weary work telling, and we fear reading, of books ; but 

 without naming them nojust idea could he given of Dr. Harvey's 

 scientific hibonrs. Before the issue of the throe quarto volumes 

 of American Seaweeds was completed, he was nctaally on the 

 seas once more — this time to Australasia. Tho I'liiversity of 

 Dublin appreciated his ardent wish to make further researches, 

 both for supplying tho museum and extending the knowledge 

 of the subject, and in 18?3 he started for Ceylon in pursuit of 

 more " Sea Treasures " of all sorts. 



It was a serious undertaking alone, as any one who has laid 

 out only a basketful of Seaweeds, picked up in a morning's 

 stroll, will know. 'I'hink of the trouble involved even in that 

 trifling business, although jugs of sea and fresh water, dishes, 

 papers, muslms, itc, come to order when servants are in 

 attendance; and then imagine what it must have been to lay 

 out no less than '.iO.OOO specimens without an assistant ! — the 

 manual labour often including fetching water in pails from a 

 distance, and that after walking half a day perhaps in search of 

 specimens, and having to finish it by the tedious process of 

 laying them out. Ho often worked at that time from six or 

 seven in the morning to ten or eleven at night. His own 

 account of his outfit for this singular expedition was very 

 amusing ; one of his contrivances having been a set of wooden 

 pails, fitting into each other so as to take up as little room as 

 possible on board a ship, but which unpacked afterwards into 

 separate vessels, fur the numberless necessities of fetching and 

 carrying. But the playful wit with which he gave these details 

 in alter years cannot bo put on paper. He had a droll story, 

 however, about his appearance whon in full work. He was 

 coming up from tho shore one day in Van Diemeu's Land 

 (Tasmania), laden with Seaweeds as usual, in dust-coloured sea 

 clothes, and with an enormous broad-leaved soft white bat on 

 his head, when, as be was passing a low garden fence, within 

 which were two children at play, one of them looked up, caught 

 sight of his uncouth figure, and shouted to the other whoso 

 back was turned, " Oh, do come and look at a very ugly old 

 man !" He described himself as much amused on the occasion, 

 for at that time he considered himself quite young (forty-four). 



Does the reader wonder how such lumbering articles as wore 

 necessary in such an expedition— a microscope and scientific 

 apparatus included — were conveyed along those wild foreign 

 coasts for so many hundreds of miles? The answer is. By sea 

 almost always ; he availing himself, as occasion served, of any 

 boat or vessel passing the way he wanted to go : and in this 

 rude and personally laborious fashion — for there was downright 

 hard work to be done in tho moving — he explored the shore 

 round Australia from east to west, as well as that of Tasmania 

 and New Zealand partially, not to speak of tho off-lying islands, 

 on one of which, Kottuest, south-west of Australia, a very good 

 algologioal ground, he spent several weeks. 



And hero we come to a record ho left of himself. We hinted 

 before at Dr. Harvey's Christian piety. Born a Quaker, and 

 brought up by very religious parents, he had remained in their 

 communion for many years of his life. But after a time he 

 followed the bent of the strong convictions which led him back 

 to the doctrines of our church, was baptised, and joined the 

 English communion. With what earnest feelings our readers 

 may judge, when they hear that in Eottnest Island, in spite of 

 algological researches and manual labour, ho found time to 

 write a series of dialogues on the dilYerences of opinion which 

 exist between ourselves and the Society of Friends. It fell out, 

 as he describes in the preface : 



" I was staying for some weeks, for the purpose of botanical 

 explorations, on the little island called Rottuest, off the coast 

 of Western Australia. I occupied a house belonging to the 

 (xovernment, but boarded with tho pilot, whose small cottage 

 hard by was ono of tho very few inhabited houses on the island. 

 One Sunday evening, whilst waiting for dinner, I chanced to 

 pick up an old number of the "Family Herald," and my eye 

 rested npon a leading article on (Quakerism, which struck me 

 as being sensibly and fairly written. Yielding to a train of 

 tkotight, not nnnatural in one who had been born of Quaker 



parents, but who had left the Society, I began to think over the 

 plan of an essay on Quakerism, but soon abauduued tho essay 

 for the dialogue. . . ." 



Here, then, wo have conducted our naturalist Quaker-boy 

 through childhood and youth to a manhood which had but 

 gathered strength, not produced alteration of character. It is 

 an enviable example. Never, snrely, was a life more harmoni- 

 ous with itself than his. As far as feelinf^s and tRstes were 

 concerned, the etanza'd poem he wrote on Miltown Malbay and 

 Moher cliffs at nineteen might have been penned in Bottoest 

 Island after forty. The same passionate love of nature — the 

 same constant vision of the Alniiglily through His works — the 

 same deep piety and personal humility — pervaded his whole 

 being at both periods, and indeed came out in one shape or 

 another in every phase of his life. Among tho few books he 

 took with him to Australia was (ieorge Herbert's Toems. "I 

 found it good for the headache, &c.," says he, in a letter ac- 

 companying a copy he was giving away, with several of his 

 favourite pieces marked — "The i'lower," "The Ehxir," &c. 

 Later in life he learnt to love " In Memoriam." " It is not 

 Tennyson's mind or fancy," he wrote in a moment of excited 

 enthusiasm during his lirst study of the poem, " but tho Holy 

 Spirit speaking through him as an instrument, whether lu: so 

 regard it or not. ... I generally keep it in my pocket now,'' 

 he added ; " and it is in my thoughts, like Scripture, night and 

 day. All this morning the lines beginning, ' How pure in 

 heart and sound in head,' are in my mind." Eventually the 

 two books lay together on the table by his sick bed at Torquay. 

 Assuredly scientific accuracy is not necessarily opposed to 

 poetical susceptibility. Not only does the tone of his own 

 fugitive poetical efforts prove this, but his keen appreciation of 

 poetical excellence. Few men or women of the present day 

 are half as intimate with Shakespeare as he was. It is even 

 possible that an accurate mind has a keener relish for what is 

 really excellent than any other, as it is certainly more alive to 

 defects. Dr. Harvey in the critic's chair was equally refined 

 and uncompromising. Nor could any one appreciate satire more 

 thoroughly. He laughed about and enjoyed Tennyson's severe 

 words — those, that is, of the hero of " iViand :" 



" The man of science himself is fender of clory, and vain ; 

 An eye well practis'd in nature, a spirit bounded .and poor.* 



He often quoted it ; and often, too, referred to the amnsiag 

 sarcasm agiinst " Professors " in the " Water Babies." Bat 

 perhaps it is easy to enjoy satire which does not touch one's 

 own particular weakness. 



After exploring Australia and Tasmania (18.5r.-4), Dr. Harvey 

 embarked in a missionary vessel, bound via New Zealand for 

 the Fiji and other South Pacific islands, where he interested 

 himself deeply in the efforts then astir for christianising the 

 savage inhabitants, and helped to organise a society for pro- 

 viding the missionaries with useful medicines to give away. 

 This cruise was one of his pleasantest recollections. On re- 

 turning from it he sailed for Valparaiso, where, alas ! more 

 illness overtoolc and disabled him ; hut in 1S5G he accomplished 

 the home voyage, crossing the Isthmus of Panama, and so 

 completing his circuit of the world, after a three-years absence. 



A " Phycologia Australica " in five large volumes, corre- 

 sponding with the " I'liycologia Britannica," was the result of 

 this tour — the sixty colom-ed plates of each volume drawn by 

 Dr. Harvey's own hand. But constant desk labour, and the 

 great quantity of lecturing which devolved upon him after his 

 election to the botanical chair, were undermining aconstitution 

 never robust, though his tall frame and great activity might 

 have led people to think otherwise. Nevertheless, the last 

 great work he had undertaken (and that only a year after the 

 commencement of the " Phycologia Australica, " so that the 

 two were going on together), the " Cape Flora," was carried on 

 with as devoted a zeal as anything he had ever attempted, and 

 to as good puipose. "Dr. Harvey's death is an irreparable 

 loss to the colony as well as to science," writes a colonial friend 

 afterwards ; and the learned botanist who was joined witU 

 Harvey in the work {Dt. Sonder, of Hamburg), will be the first 

 to endorse the opinion. 



But there is yet another word to be said. In spite of nil this 

 pressure on his time, attention, and even health, there was one 

 thing Dr. Harvey always found opportunity for — courtesy to 

 ignorant correspondents. We put it strongly, but the words 

 are not by any means too strong for facts. There was no limit 

 to tho appeals made to him for the names it Seaweeds, and 

 the explanation of statements in his books, ka. Pexiple sent 

 him the commonest plants iw Bpaice ones,.and even ^li^oophytea 



