178 ENGLISH MEN OF SCIENCE. [CHAP. 



My wife actively assisted me in my botanical 

 and other scientific pursuits, and to her advice 

 and assistance I owe much of my success in 

 life." (a,/, h) 



(6) " The love for botany was instilled into me 

 in very early youth by my father. We lived in 

 the house of .... [a very eminent geologist], in 

 the vicinity of . . . . , and I often took walks to 

 those hills and collected plants. I also culti- 

 vated plants in our garden. A taste for natural 

 science, especially botany, seems to have been 

 innate. The companionship of .... incited me 

 to prosecute botany with vigour. I was one of 

 his best pupils, and travelled over a great part 

 of .... with him." (e, g) 



(7) [A posthumous account.] " He appears to 

 have been attached to natural history all his life 

 through, but never took up botany to any extent 

 till the professorship was vacant. [There is 

 some conflict of testimony here.] I think his 

 scientific tastes were innate. I have excellent 

 drawings of insects made by him as a schoolboy ; 

 also, he made a model of a caterpillar ; tried a 



