xviil CHARLES CARDALE BABINGTON. 



thing must indeed be wrong if Cardale Babington were missing 

 at any board. No private summons, however alluring, might 

 cancel a public ' duty.' 



The Babington family, with its allies, Gisbomes, Cardales, etc., 

 had long been staunch Johnians, as may be seen in the printed 

 pedigree given by Cardale, this very year (1895), to the library. 

 From this I pluck below enough to link together the two 

 cousins, with so many tastes in common, though the enthusiasm 

 of the one was subdued, of the other more mettlesome and 

 catching. In unquenchable thirst for knowledge, single-eyed 

 service, loyalty to the College and to Cambridge, there was 

 nothing to choose between them. Perhaps no copy of the 

 Eagle^ was more wistfully scanned or wears a daintier dress 

 than that in No. 5, Brookside, though whether sporting news 

 found there a wakeful listener, is a moot point. In duhiis 

 libertas. Grateful to the College for lending him a home, as a 

 simple M.A. not on the foundation, Cardale shewed his thank- 

 fulness by giving £100 for the new Chapel. 



His wider patriotism was not less deep. Not without cause 



did be choose as the motto of the Cambridge Flora those words 



of Linnaeus : 



Turpe est in patria vivere et patriam ignorare.* 



Few men ever rifled, as he did, throughout their length 

 and breadth, England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland,® and their 

 satellites, Orkney, Shetland, Achill, Arran, the Hebrides, etc. 

 As a boy he explored the country around Bath. In manhood, 

 and even to old age, he spent vacations in tours, several time& 

 taking Glasgow students with him, while Professor Balfour led 

 a troop from Edinburgh. His journals resemble Ray's in the 

 even justice meted out to Natural History and Antiquities. 

 Were a doubt started about any statement in his books, he 

 seized the earliest opportunity to probe the matter to the bottom 

 on the spot. Once he went to Iceland, twice to the Channel 

 Islands. When urged to visit Switzerland, he pleaded : " If I 

 go, I must botanize ; I cannot help it. If I fall into a mistake 

 there, I may never be able to go over the ground again." 



One main stumbling-block, so I am told, of which he rid 

 Botany/ was this. During the long war, botanists here and 



