260 DECEASE OF THE HON. WILLIAM HERBERT. 



volume, containing The Christian, a poem, as well as various poems 

 and criticisms connected with classical literature, and manifesting full 

 vigour and clearness of mind, in the midst of obvious bodily decay. 

 He was ordained in or about 1814; but his professional duties lay, till 

 his latter years, in a rural village, and his pen was not much devoted 

 to theological labours, though a sample of his long religious and 

 pastoral cares Avas given to the public in a small number of printed 

 sermons. 



" ' Tlie Dean of Manchester was early and constantly attached to 

 natural history. In youth he was an indomitable pedestrian and an ex- 

 cellent shot, and made his gun subservient to the study of ornithology, 

 as well as his pencil and paint-brush, with which he was tolerably 

 expert. The edition of White's Selborne, published by Professor 

 Rennie, in 1832, contains many closely printed pages of his ornitho- 

 logical observations ; and the title-page gives a spirited specimen of 

 his draughtsmanship. In more domestic periods of life, the science of 

 botany, and the art of horticulture (two very different tilings), were 

 pursued by him with great success. The Botanical Magazine and 

 Register received from him frequent communications. His greatest 

 work in this line. The Amaryllidaceas, accompanied with a treatise on 

 hybrid intermixtures, was published in the year 1837 ; and such leisure 

 as remained to him, in the succeeding years of connexion witli a great 

 manufacturing city, and of declining strength, was employed on the 

 Iridaceae. In this work, whicli, had longer time or better health been 

 granted to him, would iiave been as complete as the former, a progress 

 has been made which may probably be thougiit sufficient to render its 

 publication acceptable to the naturalists of this and other countries. 

 A foretaste of this work appeared in his Crocorum Synopsis, in the 

 miscellanea to the Botanical Register for 1843, 1844, and 1845. 

 William Herbert was beyond all other persons instrumental in esta- 

 blishing and rendering popular the botanical theory of hybridisation 

 among plants ; as he was also among the earliest, and one of the most 

 eminently successful, of those who applied it to horticultural practice. 

 Upon the phenomena of liybrid intermixture he mainly founded those 

 conclusions at which lie arrived concerning natural classification, and 

 the doctrine of genus and species. They will be found embodied in 

 an essay on Hybridisation amongst Vegetables, in the Journal of the 

 Horticultural Society. On the last day of his life (Friday, May 28th, 

 1847), and just five hours before its close, he addressed to the writer 

 of these lines a description of an undescribed flower, from the Morea, 

 sufficiently accurate even for publication, and in a clear handwriting. 

 The combination of philological learning with physical, in this author, 

 must be acknowledged to have been peculiar, and of rare example. 

 Kothing is hei'e said of his principles and disposition, because he was 

 well known to numerous surviving friends, and because he who is now 

 left the only one (out of many tiiat we were) in this sad and changeful 

 world, had rather leave that office to others.' " 



