80 A Biographical Notice of Samuel Brewer, the Botanist. 



sent at one time, with the refei-ences to the Synopsis affixed by 

 Dillenius. This journey appears to have been designed to promote 

 the " Appendix " to the " Synopsis." 



Before concluding this paper I would especially invite the attention 

 of the students of " Wiltshire botany " to the investigation of the 

 mosses. They form an extremely interesting group ; to the agri- 

 culturist and the geologist they are objects of engaging study. It 

 may be truly stated that their wants are few — they live exclusively 

 upon air and moisture, and the few articles of food which its currents 

 may deposit on their arid fronds. The poet Crabbe has elegantly 

 pourtrayed the purpose which these inferior order of plants fulfil in 

 the economy of Nature. By growth and decay they convert the arid 

 surface of the rock into a rich bed of humus for the reception of 

 higher forms of vegetables, as these lines inimitably picture : — 



" There, in the rugged soil they safely dwell, 

 Till showers and snows the subtle atoms swell, 

 And spread th' enduring foliage ; then we trace 

 The freckled flower upon the flinty base. 

 These all increase, until, in unnoted years. 

 The stony tower as grey with age appears, 

 With coats of vegetation thinly spread — 

 Coat above coat — the living on the dead ; 

 These, then, dissolve to dust, and make away 

 For better foliage, nursed by theii- decay." 



Thus, indeed, by a remarkable rotation of existences, in which one 

 step is made the forerunner of another, is shewn " Flora's triumph 

 over the falling tower," 



In 1738 Mr. Brewer went into Yorkshire and resided the remain- 

 der of his days at Bradford, in that county, in the neighbourhood 

 of Dr. Richardson, by whose beneficence he was assisted in various 

 ways. After his retirement into Yorkshire he meditated and nearly 

 finished a work, which was to have borne the title of" The Botanical 

 Guide," but it never appeared. I cannot determine the time of his 

 decease, but am assured he was living in the year 1742.^ 



^ Bodman makes no mention of the Brewer family in his history of Trowbridge. 



