PREFACE. V 
Sir James is given apart from others, for the 
same reason as Mr. Davall’s. 
To her friend Dr. Boott, of Gower Street, 
the editor is under great obligation for his 
repeated acts of kindness in the course of the 
work, which she is happy thus to acknow- 
ledge: and for assistance in the selection 
of foreign correspondence she is indebted to 
Mr. Dawson Turner’s friendship.. For every 
thing else the compiler alone is answerable ; 
—-conscious as she is of the imperfections of 
the work, and unconscious probably of many 
that may have escaped her observation, it 
might seem unjust not to make this avowal. 
Should it be inquired why no portrait of 
an earlier age is given, in preference to that 
which is prefixed to the work, the answer is 
contained in the fact, that of several deline- 
ations by different artists at various periods, 
none have been esteemed as likenesses, and 
that the bust of Sir James, by the hand of 
Chantrey, in the library of the Linnean 
Society, conveys the only representation of 
him which retains the expression of his mind, 
