282 Biogrophical Notice of the late Dr. J. E. Gray. 



ill 1819 he had joined the Loudon rhilosojthical Society, 

 ■which numbered the hitc Mr. Faraday among its members, 

 and in 1820 he was a member of the Philosophical Society 

 of London, a society established in 1810 under the patronage 

 of the Duke of Sussex, 



The ohl Entomological Society of Lojidon, the successor of 

 the Aurclian Society, establisheil in 180(5, at this time held 

 its meetings at No. 87 llattou Garden ; and in 1822 Dr. CJray 

 became a Fellow and Secretary of that Society, which was 

 soon afterwards expanded into the Zoological Club of the 

 Linnean Society. As the Fellowship of the Linncan Society 

 was an essential qualitication for being a member of the Zoolo- 

 gical Club, John Edward Gray was excluded from it ; for 

 although he had been proposed as a Fellow of the Linncau 

 Society by such men as llaworth. Vigors, J. F. Stephens, 

 Joseph Goodall, Latham, Grithth, and Salisbury, he was 

 rejected by a hirge majority in a very full meeting, on the 

 IGth of April, 1822. It is of course impossible now to ascer- 

 tain the precise reasons for the rejection of a young naturalist 

 who had already given evidence of no ordinary ])Owers and 

 attainments both in zoology and botany. Dr. Gray himself 

 lias suggested that his certificate, bearing " the names of at 

 least four naturalists anxious to improve zoology and botany, 

 may have frightened the regular ' Linnteans,' of whom Dr. 

 Shaw may be considered a fair example, lie proposed putting 

 his heel on or, as some say, breaking with a hammer all shells 

 not in the twelfth edition of Linnceus's ' Systema Natura3.' 

 Things not in Linnaeus ought not to exist." Such views as 

 these are undoubtedly very nan*ow ; but, supposing them to 

 exist, the policy of preventing the opposite party from gaining 

 an accession of strength in the person of the young candidate 

 would be intelligible, and to a certain extent respectable. 

 But the reason actually assigned for his rejection was paltry. 

 He was accused of having insulted the President of the Society, 

 Sir James Edward Smith, by quoting the ' English Botany ' 

 as Sowerby's, Sir James having been hired by Sowerby to 

 write the text for his plates. 



We should not have dwelt so long upon this miserable 

 history but for the circumstance that, whatever may have been 

 the cause of his rejection, the fact itself certainly had a great 

 influence upon Dr. Gray's character. One can easily under- 

 stand that the circumstance of being thus ignoniiniously 

 rejected must have been a bitter disappointment to a young 

 and enthusiastic naturalist such as Gray then was ; and we 

 cannot wonder that he placed himself in decided antagonism 

 to those whom he thought his enemies in the matter, and thus 

 acquired that combative habit of mind which undoubtedly 



