JOHN L1NDLEY. 335 



in the English language. By his " Flora Medica " he supplied 

 to medical students a good botanical account of all the more 

 important plants used in medicine. By his "Theory of Hor- 

 ticulture," explaining the principal operations of gardening 

 upon physiological principles, in connection with his articles 

 upon the subject in the " Gardeners' Chronicle," he may 

 almost be said to have raised this branch of knowledge " from 

 the conditions of an empirical art to that of a developed 

 science." And, finally, in his " Introduction to the Natural 

 System of Botany," the first edition of which, published in 

 1830, was the earliest systematic exposition of the natural 

 system in the English language, or fairly available to English 

 and American students, and his further development of this 

 work into his classical " Vegetable Kingdom," — the one book 

 which may take the place of a botanical library, — Dr. Lind- 

 ley made his most important contributions to the advancement 

 of systematic botany. The coming generation of botanists 

 cannot be expected to appreciate the vast influence exerted 

 by the earlier of these works in its day ; the latter, however 

 open to adverse criticism in particulars, is still unrivaled and 

 is probably " that by which his name will be best known to 

 posterity." Physiologist, morphologist, and systematist, he 

 displayed equal genius in all these departments of the science, 

 but he worked too rapidly to do himself full justice in any of 

 them. "His power of work was indeed astonishing; what- 

 ever he undertook (and his undertakings were wonderful in 

 amount and variety) he did with the utmost conscientiousness, 

 never flagging until he had done it ; and he was a splendid 

 example of what can be accomplished by a man of strong will, 

 habitually acting up to his oft-repeated saying, that to method, 

 zeal, and perseverance nothing is impossible." "Until he had 

 passed fifty years of age," it is stated that "he never knew 

 what it was to feel tired either in body or mind." Such per- 

 sons are sure to be overtasked. The Great Exhibition of 1851, 

 adding protracted and onerous duties to his ordinary work, 

 prostrated him with serious illness ; the Second Exhibition, 

 in 1862, in which he took charge of the whole colonial de- 

 partment, fatally injured his bodily and mental powers, and 



