830 Von Martius on the Life and Writings of Robert Brown. 



"William IV. of Prussia), played no prominent part in public life, 

 in the brilliant society of Loudon. Some have thought this caused 

 by neglect : quite erroneously ; for he refused invitations to the 

 Botanical Chairs of the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, 

 and Glasgow, the last in favour of his friend Sir W, J. Hooker ; 

 and his Sovereign conferred on him a pension for scientific merit, 

 during the ministry of Sir Robert Peel. 



Without inclination or vocation for the elementary exposition 

 of his science — unsusceptible, not indeed to the higher fame, but 

 to the allurements of popularity or the glitter of a public posi- 

 tion — he chose the quiet, unostentatious path of life. " He always 

 moved,^' so says one of his oldest friends, " between two vertical 

 lines, which kept him separated from the great world, — between 

 an unexampled modesty and the most acute sympathy for the 

 sufferings of others ; thus he appeared to me, not to speak of 

 his high intellectual endowments, the most I'emarkable man I 

 have ever known.^^ Frugal, and content with the familiar inter- 

 course of a few true friends, he passed his life in the unpre- 

 tending circumstances in which he had been left by his patron 

 Sir Joseph Banks. He made over to the British Museum in 

 1827 the collections in which he had received a life-interest, 

 and he officiated as their Keeper after he ceased to be Librarian 

 to the Linnrean Society. He became a Fellow of the Royal 

 Society as long ago as 1810; of the Linngean Society in 1822; 

 he entered its Council in 1823; in 1828 he was named Vice- 

 President, and in 1849 was called to the Presidency as suc- 

 cessor to the Bishop of Norwich, which post he resigned, on 

 account of his advanced age, in 1853. 



The most distinguished botanists of Great Britain were ever 

 flocking to Robert Brown, glad to listen to his views and to 

 obtain his counsel. In his numerous journeys in France, Ger- 

 many, Italy, and the North, he had made friends with many of 

 his continental collaborateurs. From this literary intercourse, 

 from the stoi-es of the rarest objects of living and extinct ve- 

 getation which flowed to the renowned inquirer dwelling in the 

 great centre of civilized life, and from the comprehensive study 

 of all important publications, he continually drew new draughts 

 of knowledge, and, with a rare power of memory, remained 

 master of it to the end. 



His death, then, could not but overcome every botanist with 

 the sorrowful thought that the most noble and blameless repre- 

 sentative of their science had departed, — that the focus of a 

 fruitful epoch was extinguished. 



The physical frame of this extraordinary man had the Anglo- 

 Saxon type strongly expressed. His imposing form was tall 

 and slender, his step firm and quick ; and he stooped only at a 



