416 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
him. And had not his communicative disposition induced 
him to diffuse, by conversation, the stores of knowledge 
which he possessed, how much would science have lost! 
In the frankness of intimacy, Guillemin was seen in a most 
favourable light. His cheerful, philosophical, and playfully 
satirical turn of mind was then freely developed, and his 
conversation was replete with anecdotes, and lively incidents 
which his memory had laid up in store, culled, nobody knew 
how or where. Kind and benevolent, he envied not the 
celebrity of others, and though his observing turn of mind 
rendered him peculiarly alive to a sense of the ridiculous, 
his criticism was never such as to wound. 
In July 1838, the subject of this sketch was charged by 
the Minister of Commerce and Agriculture, to investigate 
the culture and preparation of Tea, as pursued in Brazil, 
and to bring from thence the plants which government 
desired to naturalize in France. He accordingly started in 
August, immediately after having been admitted a Member 
ofthe Apothecaries’ Company, in Paris. On reaching Rio 
Janeiro, he acquitted himself of his mission with all possible 
zeal and a year afterwards he returned to France, with 
18 cases, containing 1500 Tea plants, out of 3000 which 
hehad procured in Brazil, or raised from ripe seeds sowed 
in the spaces between the growing specimens. He also 
brought home a great many samples of the woods that are 
used in dyeing and cabinet-work, and an immense number of 
substances that compose drugs, the correct determination of 
which would prove desirable to commerce. In consequence of 
this mission, which he reported most fully to the minister on 
his return, Guillemin received the decoration of the Legion of 
onour; a reward justly due both to the zeal and intelligence 
displayed on this occasion, and to those labours which had 
previously gained him a rank among the most skilful of ` 
botanists. 
Latterly, his health became seriously impaired by an 
organic affection, and the medical advice of his anxious 
friends was ineffectual to-arrest the rapid progress of disease. 
