REMINISCENCES. M 



excellence as a Naturalist. It will be enough here to say that he 

 was the worthy successor (1861) of Henslow, and that he combined, 

 in a degree not always attained by younger botanists, a deep insight 

 into botanical law with a personal knowledge of plant-life as it is, 

 which was at once vast, and lovingly intimate. His active field-work 

 was continued with wonderful energy till his eighth decade was over. 

 I remember well a walk with him at Braemar, up the long green 

 slopes of Glas Meol, in 1888, when two little girls, the eldest not 

 quite six, found in the savant of eighty the kindest companion, 

 with a heart as young as theirs ; and ever and again, quite to the 

 hill-top, he would hurry aside to botanize with eyes and mind as 

 keen as ever. 



It is generally known that his antiquarian knowledge was second 

 only, if second, to his botanical. It used to be pleasantly said of 

 him and of his cousin, Churchill Babington, when the latter was 

 Disney Professor of Archaeology, that either might well occupy 

 the chair of the other. Charles Babington's F.S.A. was as well 

 won as his F.L.S. and the crowning honour of F.R.S. I hold in 

 grateful memory walks by his side in Scotland and long sittings 

 in the bright drawing-room at Brookside, Cambridge, when it 

 was my easy part to draw him on to give out some of his great and 

 accurate knowledge, perhaps about the ethnology and antiquities of 

 Ireland (a favorite subject), or about the Icelanders, whom he 

 visited in 1846, or the beginnings of Christianity in Scotland, or 

 about the Roman occupation of Britain. Something, but all too little, 

 of his researches has been preserved in print ; but even his writing 

 cannot fully do the work of his singularly informing manner of 

 conversation, absolutely devoid of the show of superior knowledge, 

 but stimulating while it answered enquiry at every turn. 



His long Cambridge life made him extremely interesting as the 

 man of personal recollections. He entered St. John's in 1826, took 

 his first degree in 1830, and was continuously an academical resident 

 till his death last month. I have heard him describe the look of the 

 old High Street which preceded King's Parade, and the west side 

 of which was pulled down (to give room for the screen and new 

 buildings of King's) in his first year ; and how he had an under- 

 graduate friend whose rooms were in that old court of King's where 

 Simeon was first lodged, and which was sold to the University in 

 1828, to form part (as it now does, rebuilt) of the Public Library. 

 If I am right, some of his Cambridge reminiscences were dictated 

 within the last few years. Should they ever be allowed to appear, 

 they will be a contribution to our local history of rare interest and 

 value. 



No one who knew Babington needs to be told of the noble 

 harmony in him of ample and penetrating knowledge^ with a faith 

 perfect alike in simplicity and strength. Like Sedgwick, his elder 

 friend, and Adams, his younger, he seemed to live above perplexity 

 and doubt, in a bright, pure air and light, in which the imagined 



