ROGER KENNEDY. Xlll 



so as to be transferred to the stone. He soon made himself master 

 of this kind of work, and the constant use of the pencil and pen in 

 drawing at last led to his becoming a designer of these patterns, 

 and by this means he very much improved his position in life. 

 During this transition he had not yet began his botanical studies, 

 but he had manifested a strong love for flowers from his childhood, 

 and he possessed a good eye and a very delicate steady hand ; this 

 enabled him soon to pick up the drawing, and his love of floral forms 

 gave him a great advantage in his designing. His designing again, 

 no doubt, had a tendency to make him turn to flowers for his ideas, 

 and here, we may presume, we have the changes which led to his 

 turning his attention to Botany as a science. 



It was in 1838 that, owing to a lull in his work, he went to Mill- 

 port and took up the study of Botany merely to pass away the time; 

 but, as already stated, his profession had, no doubt, some influence 

 in directing his attention towards flowers. The natural bent of his 

 mind had a great deal to do with it also, for he was endowed with 

 a strong poetic temperament, which found a new world to live in 

 among the vegetable creation. Every step in his studies opened up 

 some new region of beauty to him ; and as he advanced in the 

 science and used the microscope for diatoms and vegetable 

 physiology, the varied and wondrous forms which were thus revealed 

 had become an overpowering attraction, which led him along in his 

 researches. From his first beginning at Millport till his death, a 

 period of thirty-nine years, he was a most ardent and unwearied 

 worker. During that time he had gone over the whole field of 

 Botanical Science, and made himself master of every branch of 

 the subject. 



This devotion to flowers occupied every spare moment of his time, 

 for he had his daily work to attend to, and it is important to bear in 

 mind that it was under such conditions that he carried on his studies, 

 and reached such a high position as a Botanist. It was all along a 

 struggle with difficulties, but the ardent soul of the man carried on 

 the battle, triumphing at every step, till he had conquered the whole 

 domain. 



It will be sufficient, in relation to one aspect of his life, to state 

 that he was for some time employed by Wilson Kelso, in South 

 Frederick Street, as designer of sewed muslin patterns, and after- 



