328 



BUR DEB BURNETT. 



career at Westfortune, and soon afterwards re- 

 moved to M.ukle. -Mr lirown was a contemporary 

 uiid intimate acquaintance ot tlie late George Ken- 

 nie, Esq., of Phuntassie, and to the memory of 

 tliem both agriculture owes a tribute ot gratitude. 

 Mr ilemiie chiefly confined his attention to the 

 practice of agriculture ; and his tine otate furnished 

 evidence of the skill with which his plans were 

 devised, and of the accuracy with which they were 

 executed. While Mr llrown followed close on Mr 

 Rennie in the field, the energies of his mind war, 

 however, more particularly directed to the literary 

 department of agriculture. His "Treatise on 

 Rural Affairs," and his articles in the Edinburgh 

 " Farmer's Magazine" (of which he was conductor 

 during fifteen years), evinced the soundness of his 

 pniciiral knowledge, and the energy of his intel- 

 lectual faculties. His best articles are translated 

 into the French and German languages; and 

 ' Robert Brown of Markle " is quoted by conti- 

 nental writers, as an authority on agricultural sub- 

 jects. He took an active interest in the public 

 welfare, especially when rural economy was con- 

 cerned; and by his death the tenantry of Scotland 

 lost a no less sincere friend than an able and zealous 

 advocate. He died at Drylawhill, East Lothian.on 

 the 14th Feb. 1831, aged seventy-four. 



BORDER, GEOKGE, editor for many years 

 of the " Evangelical Magazine," was born in 1752, 

 and died May 29, 1832, at the house of his son Dr 

 Burder, in Brunswick square, London. MrBurder 

 was for upwards of twenty years minister of West 

 Orchard Chapel, Coventry ; and for twenty-nine 

 years, until within a few weeks of his death, he 

 had officiated at Fetter-lane Chapel, London. He 

 was the author or editor of the following publica- 

 tions : Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, with notes, 

 1786. Evangelical Truth Defended, 1788. Col- 

 lin's Weaver's Pocket Book, or Weaving Spirit- 

 ualized, 1794. Abridgement of Owen's Treatise 

 on Justification by Faith, 1797. The Welsh 

 Indians; or, a Collection of Papers respecting a 

 People whose ancestors emigrated from Wales to 

 America, in the year 1170, with Prince Madoc, and 

 who are said now to inhabit a beautiful country on 

 the west side of the Mississipi, 1797. The life of 

 the late Rev. John Machin, formerly minister of 

 the parish church of Astbury, Chesshire ; with a 

 recommendatory Preface, by Sir Charles Wolseley, 

 1799. Village Sermons, in six volumes, 1799 

 1812; a work which has been highly popular among 

 his fraternity. Bunyan's Holy War with notes, 

 1803. Howel's History of the Holy Bible, en- 

 larged and improved, 1805. Mather's Essays to do 

 Good, revised and improved, 1807- Missionary 

 Anecdotes, 1811. Henry's Family Bible, with im- 

 provements, in conjunction with the Rev. Joseph 

 Hughes, 4to. 



He was for many years secretary to the London 

 Missionary society, which office he discharged gra- 

 tuitously, and was extensively known as a man of 

 unostentatious piety, enlightened benevolence, and 

 considerable intellectual endowments. 



BURNETT, GILBERT THOMAS, F.L.S. professor 

 of botany to king's college, London, to the hon. 

 company of apothecaries, and to the medico-botani- 

 cal society; was born April 15, 1800. He was the 

 son of the late Mr Gilbert Burnett, surgeon of 

 Great Marylebone Street ; and the grandson of 

 Gilbert Burnett, Esq.; of Laleham, in Middlesex ; 

 whose father was the Rev. Gilbert Burnett, or 

 Burnet, rector of Coggeshill, in Essex, and minister 



of St James's Clerkenwell, in which church lie the 

 remains of their common ancestor, the celebrated 

 bishop Burnett. The early days of professor Bur- 

 nett were passed at Laleham, under the careful 

 training of his grandmother, a lady of uncommon 

 mental energy. It was in this situation, on the 

 green banks of the Thames, that he first imbibed 

 those botanical impressions which determined his 

 career, and which he afterwards perfected into 

 science, so much to his own honour and the advan- 

 tage of society. 



He was afterwards articled to Mr Ewbank, 1111 

 eminent surgeon and apothecary, whose good-will 

 and friendship he acquired by his assiduous atten- 

 tion to his profession, and his excellent moral con- 

 duct. At the expiration of his articles In; took to 

 his late father's practice, with the full confidence 

 of the patients; which practice he would probably 

 have much extended, had not a predilection for his 

 favourite science directed his aspirations to be 

 a teacher of botany; seconded also as his inclin- 

 ation was by a public call for such instruction. He 

 accordingly commenced his career therein by a 

 course of lectures on medical and general botany, 

 in the anatomical school of the celebrated John 

 Hunter, at the theatre of medicine, in Great Wind- 

 mill Street; in which course he briefly discussed 

 the principles, relations, and purposes of the 

 science : first, as regarded the philosophy of or- 

 ganization, with the comparative anatomy and phy- 

 siology of vegetables; secondly, with regard to the 

 arrangement of plants, and especially to the clari- 

 fications of Linnams and Jnssieu; and finally, with 

 respect to the properties and productions of vege- 

 tables, both medicinal and economical. Into this 

 wide and comprehensive view of his subject, our 

 young professor was led by the course of his phil- 

 osophic studies ; for, to his ardent mind and inde- 

 fatigable research, nothing was left unnoticed or 

 untried that might throw light upon, or forward, 

 his favourite pursuit, and that to which all the acts 

 of his life had some reference and tendency. The 

 lectures of Mr Burnett at the Hunterian theatre 

 procured him the honorary appointment of profes- 

 sor of botany to the medico-botanical society, to 

 which he was elected, much to the honour and ad- 

 vantage of that excellent institution. He now 

 commenced the instructing of students in botany 

 by herbarizing excursions during the summer 

 months ; combining the most agreeable and excit- 

 ing with the most improving mode of instruction, 

 by an immediate application to the science through 

 nature coupled with that amiable association with 

 his pupils which at once secured their affection and 

 attention. In the midst of these studies and occu- 

 pations, including his practice as a surgeon, &c., 

 and a regular course of lecturing at the school of 

 physic at St George's hospital, he still found op- 

 portunity, by a judicious regulation of his time, 

 to write on his particular science ; on which he 

 contributed papers to various reviews and periodi- 

 cal publications; and several of such papers, of 

 much interest to the botanist, are to be found in 

 the journals of the royal institution, at the theatre 

 of which he regularly delivered lectures on botany 

 during several seasons, and contributed discourses 

 from the stores of his various knowledge on sub- 

 jects of patriotic and popular interest in connection 

 with his science, at the evening conversazioni of 

 that institution. 



These various exertions in the science having 

 now established for Mr Burnett the well-earned re- 



