22 OUTLINE OF FOTHERGILL'S LIFE CHAP. 



student days, and when Cleghorn came home from 

 Minorca in 1750, and Russell from Aleppo in 1755, he 

 welcomed them, gave them his aid and advice, and in 

 each case induced them to publish the results of their 

 observations. Dr. Cuming of Dorchester, another fellow- 

 student, a man of lovable character, was an intimate 

 correspondent for nearly fifty years. 



His chief friend outside the medical profession was 

 David Barclay, a Quaker merchant of London, who had 

 married a young patient of FothergiU's. Barclay was 

 a man of a certain type of nobility, physical and mental 

 philanthropic, even-tempered, and sincere. Fothergill 

 and he worked much together in later years. 



As he grew into middle life, FothergiU's scientific tastes 

 found more and more employment. He wrote to his 

 friends in America for rattlesnakes, tortoises, and new 

 plants, and compiled papers for the Royal Society on 

 the origin of Amber and on Manna. He got sea-captains 

 to bring him strange things from China, from Borneo, 

 from Hindustan. He collected corals, shells, and insects, 

 and in course of time his cabinets became famous among 

 the learned. But beyond all these it was the pursuit of 

 botany that especially attracted him. Here his friend 

 Peter Collinson was the means of fostering FothergiU's 

 taste. Collinson, a Quaker like himself, was a naturalist 

 of keen instincts, and he and his American friend, John 

 Bartram, were the means of enriching English gardens 

 with many new trees and shrubs. Following his example, 

 Fothergill planted a large botanical garden at Upton in 

 1762, upon which he bestowed much care and expense. 

 His collectors searched for new plants in many lands, 

 and his garden and hothouses were stocked with thousands 

 of species of hardy and exotic plants. Fothergill was a 

 great collector ; but mere rarity had little attraction for 

 him ; he sought for products that would be useful as 

 food, as medicine, or in the arts, or that were of beauty 

 in themselves. He became a Fellow of the Society of 

 Antiquaries in 1753, and ten years later, at the invitation 

 of some members of the Royal Society, he offered himself 



