John Martin. 211 



No botanist contemporary with the elder Evans attained 

 greater celebrity than John Martin, of Tyldesley. He 

 was especially well-informed respecting Carices, and 

 first drew the attention of the botanists of Manchester 

 to the richness of the neighbourhood, supplying, in 

 regard to them, names and localities they knew not of, 

 as well as many facts respecting the botany of Tyldesley 

 in particular, with which he has never been properly 

 accredited. This eminent veteran was among us till so 

 late as August i3th, 1855. 



The mantle of these old men has fallen well. Very 

 few of the botanists mentioned above are still alive I 

 am glad to be able to add to the short list the name of 

 Richard Hampson, of Tyldesley ; but they have plenty 

 of successors, and never more energetically than at the 

 present moment was natural history pursued as a pastime 

 in South-East Lancashire. 



The peculiarities of the original race are fast disappear- 

 ing, a circumstance plainly attributable to the facilities of 

 travel given by the railway system, to the multiplication 

 of books, and to the more general diffusion of know- 

 ledge. At the period when the celebrity of the old 

 Lancashire botanists was established, say during the first 

 quarter of the present century, they lived in comparative 

 isolation. Now the isolation alike of abode and oppor- 

 tunities has been cancelled, and as a consequence the 

 class of men who as individuals, somewhat conspicuous 

 in their way, gave it colour, have slowly disappeared. 

 The ancient spirit, nevertheless, is as keen as ever, and 



