vi MEMOIR OF WILLIAM YARRELL. 



Street, and there the son lived with her, and during that 

 time was joined in trade with his cousin, then carrying 

 on the business of their late fathers at the north-east 

 corner of Little Ryder Street, to which house it had 

 been removed ; and whither, on Edward Jones ceasing 

 to reside, William Yarrell went, and continued to dwell, 

 till death.* A domicile so permanent offers no field for 

 stirring incident, but it is salutary to contemplate the 

 career of a man, who, possessing the ability, judg- 

 ment and industry that lead to success, and placed by 

 the accidents of birth and connection among the busy 

 throng of the metropolitan worshippers of wealth, de- 

 liberately chose the safer middle path of competency, 

 in an age when money has power to raise its possessor to 

 a seat among the law-givers of the land, and the art of 

 acquiring it is considered in the social estimate of the 

 day as equivalent to high breeding, education and virtue, 

 when, in short, the cry " get money, per fas aut nefas" 

 has gone far towards sapping the national character for 

 honesty, and the vaunted good faith of the British mer- 

 chant is in danger of becoming a myth. 



The following brief narrative is compiled from obitu- 

 ary notices published immediately after Mr. Yarrell's 

 death by several of his intimate and attached friends 

 Professor Bell, President of the Linnean Society, Dr. 

 R. G. Latham, Edward Newman and Lovell Reeve, 

 Esqs. These gentlemen have referred mainly to Mr. 

 Yarrell's scientific pursuits, and have mentioned few or 

 no particulars of his private life, nor is the compiler of 

 this memoir able to supply the deficiency. But he, who 

 attained the length of days usually allotted to man, and 

 survived all his brothers and sisters as well as father and 



* A year before that event, he had ceased to have any connection with the 

 business, having retired in favour of Messrs. Joseph and Charles Clifford. 



