HIS WORK 71 



to build (which now serves as a porch) Stephen Hales is buried, 



I and the stone which covers his body is being worn away by the 



feet of the faithful. By the piety of a few botanists a mural tablet, 



on which the epitaph is restored, has been placed near the grave. 



Horace Walpole called Hales " a poor, good, primitive 

 creature" and Pope^ (who was his neighbour) said "I shall be 

 very glad to see Dr Hales, and always love to see him, he is so 

 worthy and good a man." Peter Collinson writes of "his 

 constant serenity and cheerfulness of mind " ; it is also re- 

 corded that " he could look even upon wicked men, and those 

 who did him unkind offices, without any emotion of particular 

 indignation ; not from want of discernment or sensibility ; but 

 he used to consider them only like those experiments which, 

 upon trial, he found could never be applied to any useful 

 purpose, and which he therefore calmly and dispassionately laid 

 aside." 



Hales' work may be divided into three heads : 

 I. Physiological, animal and vegetable ; 

 n. Chemical; 

 HI. Inventions and miscellaneous essays. 



Under No. I. I shall deal only with his work on plants. 

 The last heading (No. III.) I shall only refer to slightly, but 

 the variety and ingenuity of his miscellaneous publications is 

 perhaps worth mention here as an indication of the quality of 

 his mind. It seems to me to have had something in common 

 with the versatile ingenuity of Erasmus Darwin and of his 

 grandson Francis Galton. The miscellaneous work also exhibits 

 Hales as a philanthropist, who cared passionately for bettering 

 the health and comfort of his fellow creatures by improving 

 their conditions of life. 



His chief book from the physiological and chemical point of 

 view is his Vegetable Staticks. It will be convenient to begin 

 with the physiological part of this book, and refer to the 

 chemistry later. Vegetable Staticks is a small 8vo of t^jQ pages, 

 dated on the title-page 1727. The '' hnprimattir Isaac Newton 

 Pr. Reg. Soc." is dated February 16, I72f, and this date is of 



1 With a certain idleness Pope reduces him to plain Parson Hale, for the sake of 

 a rhyme in the Epistle of Martha Blount, i. 198. 



