350 THE EETUEN FROM INDIA 



deputed Lord Rosse, 1 President of the Royal Society, Robert 

 Brown, the botanist, representing the British Museum, and 

 William Hopkins, 2 President of the Geological Society, to 

 press the Government on a matter of so much importance to 

 science. By the following spring, just a year after his return, 

 these representations produced their effect. The Department 

 authorised the grant for three years, to the end of 1854. 



Meantime in September he was in the act of moving into 

 Aiton's old house in the Gardens when very onerous conditions 

 were sprung upon him by the authorities. Refusing to be 

 saddled with such a burden while his footing was still un- 

 certain, he broke off at once. Furniture and all were taken 

 away again. 



My collections [he tells Harvey a couple of months later] 

 were turned out neck and crop of course the dried plants 

 into the Temple of the Sun, and the rest into the back shed 

 of the Orangery ! where they are going the way of all paren- 

 chyma and pleurenchyma ! 



He finally settled in a house, now No. 350 Kew Road, 

 belonging to Mr. Bryan, the Vicar, where the Curator, John 

 Smith the elder, had spent his last years. Here he brought his 

 wife, for at the beginning of August he had married Frances 

 Henslow. Their engagement had been a long one, but this 

 price had been paid deliberately. His position in the botani- 

 cal world had to be assured by his great travels in India. 

 Perfect confidence and rare strength of mind were needed to 

 resolve upon a three years' separation within a few months 

 of their engagement. But by birth and training she was able 

 to help in his work, to share, his aims, and appreciate the 

 worth of their joint sacrifice. 



Still, even after such sacrifice and achievement, his chosen 



1 The third Earl of Rosse (1800-67), whose laborious experiments for the 

 improvement of the reflecting telescope culminated in the great telescope at 

 Parsonstown, first used in 1845. 



2 William Hopkins (1793-1866), mathematician and geologist, nicknamed 

 while tutor at Peterhouse ' the Senior-wrangler maker ' : a teacher of Stokes 

 and Kelvin, Tait and Clerk-Maxwell. He applied mathematical and astro- 

 nomical tests to geological reasoning. Was elected President of the Geological 

 Society 1851, and of the British Association 1853. 



