JOHN LINDLEY. 335 
in the English language. By his “ Flora Medica” he supplied 
to medical students a good botanical account of all the more 
important plants used in medicine. By his “Theory of Hor- 
ticulture,” explaining the principal operations of gardening 
upon physiological principles, in connection with his articles 
upon the subject in the “ Gardeners’ Chronicle,” he may 
almost be said to have raised this branch of knowledge “ from 
the conditions of an empirical art to that of a developed 
science.” And, finally, in his “ Introduction to the Natural 
System of Botany,” the first edition of which, published in 
1830, was the earliest systematic exposition of the natural 
system in the English language, or fairly available to English 
and American students, and his further development of this 
work into his classical ‘“‘ Vegetable Kingdom,” — the one book 
which may take the place of a botanical library, — Dr. Lind- 
ley made his most important contributions to the advancement 
of systematic botany. The coming generation of botanists 
cannot be expected to appreciate the vast influence exerted 
by the earlier of these works in its day; the latter, however 
open to adverse criticism in particulars, is still unrivaled and 
is probably “that by which his name will be best known to 
posterity.” Physiologist, morphologist, and systematist, he 
displayed equal genius in all these departments of the science, 
but he worked too rapidly to do himself full justice in any of 
them. “His power of work was indeed astonishing; what- 
ever he undertook (and his undertakings were wonderful in 
amount and variety) he did with the utmost conscientiousness, 
never flagging until he had done it; and he was a splendid 
example of what can be accomplished by a man of strong will, 
habitually acting up to his oft-repeated saying, that to method, 
zeal, and perseverance nothing is impossible.” ‘Until he had 
passed fifty years of age,” it is stated that “he never knew 
what it was to feel tired either in body or mind.” Such per- 
sons are sure to be overtasked. The Great Exhibition of 1851, 
adding protracted and onerous duties to his ordinary work, 
prostrated him with serious illness; the Second Exhibition, 
in 1862, in which he took charge of the whole colonial de- 
partment, fatally injured his bodily and mental powers, and 
