124 ROBERT BROWN 



than his own requirements demanded, an arrangement was 

 made by which the Linnean Society moved into the vacant 

 rooms, where it remained for a number of years. Brown 

 subsequently became President of the Society (in 1849), 



Robert Brown was deservedly acclaimed by his contem- 

 poraries as the first botanist of his age, and honours fell to his 

 share even in his earlier years. He was elected a Fellow of the 

 Royal Society in 181 1, and twenty-eight years afterwards was 

 awarded the Copley Medal. He was approached in 18 19 in 

 connection with the Chair of Botany in Edinburgh, but decided 

 not to sever his intimate connection with Sir Joseph Banks. 

 Abroad he was probably more widely known than in this 

 country, for when on a visit to Prussia the King sent a special 

 carriage to meet him, and decorated him with the Order Potir 

 la Merite. In England, on the other hand, though held in the 

 highest esteem by his scientific confreres, he shared the obscurity 

 that was the common lot of many of the savants of that age. 

 He was, however, awarded a civil pension, although not without 

 question on the part of certain members of the House of 

 Commons. 



He lived to a ripe age, passing away in the year 1858, the 

 85th of his age. To the last he retained his interest in his 

 life work, and on June 3, a week before he died, he signed a 

 certificate in favour of an Associate of the Linnean Society. 



Robert Brown, as we have seen, penetrated more deeply 

 than most of his contemporaries into the secrets of nature, and 

 he enriched the science to which he devoted his long life by 

 discoveries of fundamental importance. But he, no more than 

 others, was able to anticipate, with all his insight, the recogni- 

 tion of the broader bonds of coherence which link up the plant 

 kingdom as a whole. That was only made possible when the 

 researches of Hofmeister, the great Tubingen Professor, had 

 been made known to the world. But it is no reproach to his 

 memory or to his reputation that he should have fallen into 

 error when attempting to elucidate the critical stages in the 

 life history of cryptogams. The historical interest attaching 

 to his mistakes lies in their inevitableness at the time when he 

 was actively working. 



