286 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. 
two, so far as they represent inquiry, and genuine advance- 
ment in the knowledge of floral structure, actually originated 
with him. Still, after making due allowance for a mind as 
scrupulous and cautious as it was clear and profound, also for 
an unusually retiring disposition, which even in authorship 
seems to have rendered him as sedulous to avoid publicity as 
most writers are to gain it, it must be acknowledged that his 
retentiveness was excessive ; and that his guarded published 
statements sometimes appear as if intended — like the ana- 
grams of the older mathematicians and philosophers — rather 
to record his knowledge than to reveal it. But this was prob- 
ably only in appearance, and rather to be attributed to his 
sensitive regard for entire accuracy, and his extreme dislike 
of all parade of knowledge, — to the same peculiarity which 
everywhere led him to condense announcements of great con- 
sequence into short paragraphs or foot-notes, and to insert 
the most important facts in parentheses, which he who runs 
over the page may read, indeed, but which only the most 
learned and the most reflecting will be apt to comprehend. 
In candor it must be said that his long career has left some 
room for the complaint that he did not feel bound to exert 
fully and continuously all his matchless gifts in behalf of the 
science of which he was the most authoritative expositor. 
But if thus in some sense unjust to himself and to his high 
calling, Brown could never be charged with the slightest in- 
justice to any fellow-laborer. He was scrupulously careful, 
even solicitous, of the rights and claims of others; and in 
tracing the history of any discovery in which he had himself 
borne a part, he was sure to award to each one concerned his 
full due. If not always communicative, he was kind and con- 
siderate to all. To adopt the words of one of his intimate as- 
sociates, “those who knew him as a man will bear unanimous 
testimony to the unvarying simplicity, truthfulness, and be- 
nevolence of his character,” as well as to “the singular up- 
rightness of his judgment.” 
The remaining and the most illustrious name of all — and 
one in its wide renown strongly in contrast with the last — 
has only just now been inscribed on our obituary list. 
