were abandoned in 1834. He died at ninety-four, leaving behind 

 him the reputation of a distinguished botanist, enthusiastically 

 attached to the doctrine of Linnaeus. 



Many are the stories told of his childlike simplicity of character 

 and his benevolence, and also of his oddities. In early life he had 

 enrolled himself in the volunteer military forces which on a 

 certain occasion when rioting was anticipated, were called out 

 in readiness to quell the disturbance, should it take place. * If 

 I had been ordered to fire upon the people," he said, " I should 

 certainly have done so, offering up at the same time a prayer that 

 my bullet might not take effect." 



On one of the Herborizings on the banks of the Thames, he 

 witnessed a boat accident, when a number of boys were capsized. 

 Though assured by everybody that the entire party was saved, 

 he was not satisfied, for he saw the boat floating bottom upper- 

 most, and he shouted, " Turn up the boat for heaven's sake ! ' : 



This was done and a lad of fourteen was discovered insensible 

 under the thwarts. 



Wheeler carried indifference to appearance, and simplicity in 

 dress, to extremes : but there was no affectation in this, and he 

 seems to have been quite unconscious of the eccentricity of his 

 appearance, although on one occasion a friend remarked to him : 

 14 Ah, Diogenes ! thy pride peeps out of every button of thy 

 coat ! " 



The surgery at St. Thomas's Hospital went by the name of 



4 the Shop." On a certain occasion the old professor was sitting 

 in this room with a number of students, who were joking and 

 bantering him, and each other, and he, on his part, was impressing 

 upon them the folly of superfluities in dress. A youth, who later 

 on rose to eminence in his profession, said with assumed gravity : 



' Well, but, Mr. Wheeler, how can you support such a doctrine 

 when you yourself wear such a superfluity as this ? " and he lifted 

 up the small pig-tail which the professor wore. The old man, 



* taken aback," confessed that it was " superfluous." " Yes, my 

 dear sir, you are right, we are too prone to preach one thing, and 

 practise another ; cut it off, sir, pray cut it off ! " and Laurence 



' for such was his name," forthwith performed the amputation. 

 On another occasion Wheeler was driving in an open carriage with 

 James Lowe Wheeler, and Hurlock, a well-known member of the 



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