( 90 ) . 



Biography of the late Dugald Cjrmichael, Esq. Captain l^d 

 Regiment, Fellow of the Linnean Society*. 



While it is highly desirable that every country should have its 

 just share of credit for the men of literature and science which 

 it has produced, there is no individual, considered in himself, to 

 whom the place of his birth has been less important in forming 

 his character, than the naturalist, and with whom, therefore, it 

 may be less necessary to record it. Not because his life reflects 

 no honour on its natal soil, nor because he is himself insensible 

 to the glow of patriotism ; but because the sympathies of the 

 naturalist extend beyond his own home, and Universal Nature 

 claims his attention. Amidst the multitude of organized beings, 

 the individuality of his own being is less to him than to others. 

 His eye ranges from pole to pole, while his hand is stretched 

 over mountain and valley, lake and wood, and the spot which 

 has presented him with a new genus or a peculiar formation, 

 becomes attractive to his thoughts as the dwelling-place of his 

 fathers. His breath seems as if first drawn where he experien- 

 ced the ecstacy that arises from the conviction of having disco- 

 vered what had escaped the observation of others, and which 

 stands hitherto recorded only in the annals of the Almighty in 

 creation. The naturaUst thus becomes the revealer, as it were, 

 of a little world, wherein the divine power and wisdom are dis- 

 played in new relations ; and, while accustoming his eye to be- 

 hold in every object a particular manifestation of infinite intel- 

 ligence, he sees in each law the operating hand of the Almighty ; 

 in each being the life of the Eternal ; in each climate His 

 unity ; in every distant planet His ubiquity ; in every provi- 

 sion the fulness of His mercy ; and in the constancy of their 

 action His truth ; while in the struggle to grasp the whole in 

 his own finite comprehension, the naturalist possibly forgets or 

 loses sight of self. 



The island of Lismore, in the county of Argyle, and one of 



• In Dr Hooker's well known and excellent « Botanical Miscellany," 

 there is a biography of our late excellent friend and pupil Carmichael, by 

 our former pupil, the Rev. Colin Smith, minister of Inverary. We extract 

 from Mr Smith's memoir some of the more interesting particulars — Edit. 



