172 Country Rambles. 



panions in the love of science and nature; it should 

 rather be said, perhaps, that he was generally one of 

 every party made up by the naturalists of the day for the 

 purpose of visiting the country, as there was but a single 

 purpose among the whole. One of his warmest friends 

 was Thomas Townley, originally of Blackburn, where 

 the two men became acquainted, subsequently of Liver- 

 pool, and eventually of our own city. The circumstance 

 is worth mentioning on two accounts. Next to a man's 

 acts and principles, it is interesting to know who were 

 his closest and oldest associates, since there is always a 

 reciprocal though unconscious influence passing from one 

 to the other, which explains a good deal of character; and 

 in the second place, in addition to being an excellent 

 botanist, Townley was a neat painter in water-colours, 

 and claimed, with a justice that is most willingly acknow- 

 ledged, the credit of drawing forth the youthful genius 

 of his friend's son, the Robert Crozier of to-day. It is 

 pleasant to think that the beautiful pictures which now 

 decorate so many walls had their impulse in the little 

 palette of the old botanist. Townley and Crozier were 

 the first to design a "Manchester Flora," and but for 

 Crozier's infirm health during the latter years of his life, 

 the crude catalogue of 1840 would have been followed 

 by a complete work, in which his own long observations 

 and those of the other leading botanists of the district 

 would have been consolidated. Crozier died before he 

 could do the part intended. Townley, however, never 

 let go the idea, and two years after Crozier's death his 



