1869] Candidate for a Professorship. 227 



of examining dried specimens of this critical form in the 

 British Museum, Mr. More recognised them as agreeing 

 with some unnamed plants in his own herbarium, which he 

 had gathered in the Isle of Wight as long ago as 1860, and 

 was thus enabled to record the form as British. 



A short tour in Switzerland was taken towards the end 

 of September, and at Geneva he again visited M. Alphonse 

 de Candolle. A eulogistic notice of* Cybele Hibernica" 

 from M. de Candolle's pen soon afterwards appeared, and 

 was thought well calculated to further a candidature which 

 Mr. More's friends were at the time strongly pressing upon 

 him. 



The candidature referred to was for the Chair of Botany 

 in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. In many 

 respects the position would have been a very attractive one, 

 but great difficulty was found in prevailing on him to apply 

 for it. His devotion to botany had certainly not relaxed 

 during the three years for which he had held his position 

 in the Museum. Each summer he had made an addition 

 to the flora of Ireland,* sufficient evidence that his thoughts 

 of abjuring " vegetarianism " had been the merest dream. 

 But he felt extreme diffidence at the thought of delivering 

 lectures, having, as he protested, never spoken in public. 

 When induced to become a candidate, he quickly received 

 a series of testimonials which show the hyper-sensitiveness 

 of this objection : Dr. Syme and other botanists making 

 special mention of his " great facility in imparting infor- 

 mation in a lucid manner," a gift which, in fact, all his 

 friends knew him to possess in a very marked degree, and 

 which, in combination with that " critically exact know- 

 ledge " emphasised by Mr. Watson, leaves little else to be 

 desired in a scientific lecturer. 



The testimonials, as arranged by him for forwarding to 

 the Council, are printed below. They comprise two which 

 had been sent him some years earlier in 1865, when he 

 thought of competing for the Chair of Natural History in 

 the Queen's College, Galway as well as an extract from 

 M. de Candolle's review of the "Cybele Hibernica" : 



* Trifolium subterraneum, 1867 ; Scirpus parvulus, 1868 ; Aira uliginosa, 1869. 



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