X MEMOIR 



but little intrinsic value in his poems, they evince a love of 

 flowers and a spirit of piety. One of them begins — 



*' Come Charles and Sophia and Emily too, 

 Come down the green lane, papa's naught else to do " ; 



and in the list of subscribers appear the names of the Rev. Derwent 

 Coleridge and of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Johns of Carrickfergus, 

 presumably the poet's brother and sister-in-law, from whom the 

 botanist derived his second Christian name. 



Meanwhile, before he was twenty, Charles Alexander Johns 

 had, in 1831, become second master of Helston Grammar School 

 under Derwent Coleridge, the son of the great poet-metaphysician 

 and himself a linguist of unusual gifts. Coleridge had been ap- 

 pointed head-master soon after his ordination in 1825, and when, in 

 1 84 1, he was chosen first Principal of St. Mark's College, Chelsea, 

 Johns soon succeeded him at Helston, being head-master there 

 from June 1843 to December 1847. Their most distinguished 

 pupil was undoubtedly Charles Kingsley, whose father was vicar 

 of Clovelly when the boy entered the school in 1832, but had been 

 preferred to the rectory of St. Luke's, Chelsea, before he entered 

 King's College, London, in 1836. In her "Life " of her husband 

 Mrs. Kingsley writes (vol. i, p. 23) — 



** At Helston, too, he found as second -master the Rev. Charles A. Johns, 

 afterwards himself head-master, who made himself the companion of his young 

 pupil, encouraging his taste, or rather passion, for botany, going long rambles 

 with him on the neighbouring moors and on the sea-coast, in search of wild 

 flowers, and helping him in the study which each loved so well. In later 

 years, when both were living in Hampshire, Mr. Johns laboured successfully 

 for the cause of physical science in the city of Winchester, where his name will 

 long be remembered in conjunction once more with that of his former pupil 

 and distinguished friend." 



Before coming to Helston, Kingsley had been initiated in the 

 study of conchology by Dr. Turton, who lived near Clovelly ; but 

 in Johns he found an all-round naturalist of the old-fashioned out- 

 of-door school to whom flowers and birds, trees, sea-weeds, shells 

 or insects were alike of interest. 



Johns began his forty years of authorship in 1833 with a modest 

 volume of " Chronological Rhymes on English History," which 

 went into several editions ; and was followed by what we may well 

 suppose to have been the more congenial "Flora Sacra," published 

 in 1840. 



In 1 84 1 he graduated as Bachelor of Arts at Trinity College, 

 Dublin, and, in the same year, was ordained deacon, not, however, 

 becoming a priest until 1848. 



Meanwhile, in 1847, he began the publication of his popular 



