3 
can hardly be said to have spurred him to the effort; 
for an effort it surely is, to choose a path through 
which we see but darkly where it leads. 
Though enthusiasm and a love of fame had per- 
haps some influence, a love of science and of truth 
had greater still. He said to others, “ The fairest 
flower in the garden of creation is a young mind, 
offering and unfolding itself to the influence of divine 
wisdom, as the heliotrope turns its sweet blossoms 
to the sun ;” and may it not be said of him that taste 
and virtue fixed his choice ? 
He was born at Norwich the second of December 
1759, was the eldest child of his parents, and for 
almost five years continued the only one. From 
infancy a delicacy of constitution marked his 
bodily frame; and an extreme susceptibility was no 
less obvious in his mental temperament. He was 
consequently more under the immediate care and 
direction of his mother than most children require 
to be, and it was from her, that at a very early period 
he imbibed a taste for flowers, which she had plea- 
sure in cultivating. He seldom in after-life saw the 
delicate blue flowers of the wild succory, without 
recalling to mind, that, when, in infancy, their beauty 
caught his eye and attracted his admiration above 
most others, he tried in vain to pluck them from 
the stalk. 
Probably the charm of this quiet amusement was 
greatly enhanced by a natural timidity, a diffidence 
amounting to a degree often painfully embarrassing, 
and which was never so obliterated from his re- 
membrance, but that at times he would recur to 
B2 
