MEMOIR 



OF 



JOHN WALKER, D.D. 



JOHN WALKER, D.D., was born towards the begin- 

 ning of the last century in the Canongate suburb of 

 Edinburgh, and received his education at the gram- 

 mar-school of that district, of which his father was 

 at the time rector. His early proficiency in classical 

 literature is said to have been so great, that he was 

 able to relish Homer at ten years of age; and if 

 this be correct, he must have owed much to paternal 

 instruction. 



He tells us himself, in a letter to Lord Kames, 

 that he TOIS a kind of naturalist by intuition : " Let 

 your lordship pursue the analogy between plants 

 and mankind as far as you will, it is not likely I 

 shall be as much offended as with my friend Lin- 

 naeus. I have been, from my cradle, fond of vege- 

 table life; and though I like my species and the 

 rank I hold in the creation, I declare I would sooner 

 claim kindred to an oak or to an apple-tree than to 

 an ape/' 



B 



