APPENDIX I. .361 



which was a narrow cul-de-sac, with the Independent Chapel 

 on the opposite side of this little street, where the family 

 attended. He and his brother had been in the choir, William 

 having played the violin. We obtained leave to go inside his old 

 dwelling ; and there he searched all the rooms, and endeavoured 

 to see if any traces existed of sentences and aphorisms, which 

 he and his brothers used to write under the chimney-slab or 

 other places. At length, he found, in a corner of the ceiling, some 

 lines of his own writing, fifty years old, but still unobliterated by 

 cleaning or whitewash. The old familiar water-butt in the corner 

 of the little back-yard, and other reminiscences, brought back 

 many of his youthful thoughts, occupations, and amusements ; 

 the harbour and quay, from whence, as a boy, leaving the parental 

 roof, he went out to Newfoundland. 



We walked to see the old oak tree in a field outside the town, 

 in which he used to sit on Saturday afternoons and half-holidays, 

 with his great friend and favourite school-fellow, John Brown, 

 reading and discussing their histories and their little empires and 

 infant zoological studies, thus sowing the seeds of that incipient 

 life, which afterwards developed into his great, extended, and 

 accomplished mind. He made a sketch of the fine Poole 

 Harbour and Brownsea Island, sand rocks, Old Harry Cliff, from 

 Parkstone, where we walked several times to visit our kind friend, 

 Walter Gill, who kept a large school there. This view we painted 

 together in water colours, and finished when we got back to 

 Sandhurst ; it is framed and hangs in the dining-room to this day, 

 with many other landscapes, which his skilful hand drew from the 

 spots. 



A little later, when the interest of the orchids wore off, and his 

 gardener had attained sufficient skill to cultivate them indepen- 

 dently, he began to form a collection of foreign butterflies, for 

 which he had considerable facilities. Through his scientific 

 knowledge, he had large acquaintance with men who, in this line, 

 were able to help to secure valuable and choice specimens. 

 These he obtained chiefly from the tropics, by writing to persons 

 and collectors named to him, who would send considerable 

 numbers of butterflies, their wings folded when life was just 

 extinct ; being put in three-cornered envelopes, they would travel 

 well, being packed together in cigar and similar boxes. He 



