VI PREFACE. 



evidence of early work iii Natural History appears in a minute 

 memorandum-book, inscribed in large caj)itals on the first 

 page: — "Botany. E. Newman," without date, but written 

 in pencil ; at so early an age that each letter is formed 

 separately, and occasional images are devoted to "pothooks and 

 hangers." The following is an extract: — "Of the geranium. 

 The class is Monadelphia. The colour is various, being some- 

 times white, in others scarlet ; its leaf is round, but ragged ; 

 •there are peppermint-scented and pencil-blossom. There are 

 many other geraniums, but I do not know their names." Then 

 follows a list of the Linnean divisions : — " Dodecandria, Icosan- 

 dria, Polyandria (many), Didynamia (4), Tetradynamia(6)," (tc. 



In the year 1812 he was sent to a boarding-school at Pains- 

 wick, in Gloucestershire, of which Oade Eoberts, a member of 

 the Society of Friends, was master, where, in addition to being 

 initiated into classical studies, his love for Natural History 

 was developed. On " 10th mo. 29, 1813," he -UTi-ites home to 

 his mother : — " I take great pleasure in botanizing, but there 

 are not so many flowers as there were when I first came here to 

 school; but still I find some. I shall have great pleasure in 

 showing thee my botanical copy-books when I am at home." 

 This is Avritten in a small neat hand, very different from that 

 in the memorandiun-book mentioned above. On "2nd month 

 3rd, 1815," he is still at Painswick, and writes to a relative : — 

 " I could not give Helen much information Avith respect to 

 lichens and mosses, as I have only yet studied the first classes ; 

 but I am now beginning to study the class Cryptogamia, though 

 the snow has been on the ground ever since I returned." One 

 of his schoolfellows, a cousin, writes : — " We were both initiated 

 into a love for Natural History, which continued to interest us 

 in after years ; in his case eminently so. ''■'• ■■' " "What particu- 

 larly impressed itself on my mind was the neatness and accuracy 

 of Edward's di-awing of a beetle, — so superior to what any of the 

 rest of us could accomplish." 



On leaving school, in the year 1817, he went to Godalming, 

 in Surrey, — his mother's birthplace, — to which rural town his 

 father, formerly in business in London as a manufacturer of 

 morocco-leather, had removed on his retirement. The family 

 house is just outside the town, at the corner of the lane 



