Biographical Memoir of the lute Dr Henry. 15 



prosperous fortunes and high destinies. During the latter 

 years of his life, especially, these pursuits ministered largely to 

 his sources of enjoyment, and prompted him to undertake seve- 

 ral short journeys, with the object of examining interesting sec- 

 tions, and of collecting characteristic fossils. The growing lite- 

 rature of a science, that has attracted to itself so large a share 

 of the intellect and genius of this country, replaced as an ob- 

 ject of interest in Dr Henry's mind, the contemporary progress 

 of chemistry, from the details of which, in consequence of phy- 

 sical inability for experimenting, he had ceased to derive much 

 pleasure. 



In polite letters, Dr Henry had ever been accustomed to 

 seek variety and relaxation from severer study. His range of 

 interest was singularly comprehensive. He took peculiar de- 

 light in narratives of voyages and travels, and from such works 

 was in the habit of gathering and preserving all novel facts 

 that tended to throw light on the physical history of the earth, 

 or the manners and mental habitudes of its inhabitants. He 

 has thus strongly expressed his sense of the value and dignity 

 of such personal labours and perils in the cause of science. 

 " No subject within the compass of human knowledge em- 

 braces so wide a sphere of enquiry, or so much tends to 

 gratify an enlightened and liberal curiosity, as voyages and 

 travels undertaken with a right aim, and by persons qua- 

 lified to reap their rich and varied fruits. To those en- 

 gaged in them, are offered all the fascination of novelty, all 

 the hopes of wider and brighter prospects of the moral and na- 

 tural world ; all the warm impulses of an honourable ambition 

 to live beyond the present times, and to be remembered by con- 

 quests more glorious and more useful than those of the field. 

 These high motives kindle and keep alive a spirit which sus- 

 tains them through toils, difficulties, and disappointments, and 

 enables them to triumph over physical privations and pains, 

 which would dishearten the stoutest, if encountered in the every 

 day transactions of life." Biography, especially that of men 

 devoted to the pursuits of philosophy, always occupied him 

 most agreeably, — carrying back his intellectual sympathies to 

 distant periods, and supplying him with materials for after- 

 thought and speculation. His mind liad been early nurtured 



