Notice of the late Mr. George Caley. 227 
some few additional well authenticated facts may not, perhaps, 
prove unacceptable, especially as they tend to elucidate cer- 
tain circumstances affecting his earlier career, which have 
been suffered to remain in obscurity. That this communica- 
tion was not made immediately consecutive to the original 
memoir may be regretted; but the delay was occasioned by 
your correspondent’s time and attention having been exclu- 
sively engrossed by the completion of the recently published 
new dition of an elaborate botanical work. 
The late Dr. Withering, whose protracted suffering from ill 
health was so remarkably alleviated by botanical Tesoancliae 
was never more agreeably engaged than in fostering rising 
genius; and especially in pr omoting the views of the tyro 
diligently seeking after scientific knowledge, to whom he was 
ever accessible, either by correspondence or personal appli- 
cation. 
Among very many who thus benefited by his advice and 
instructions was Mr. George Caley; who, impelled by an 
ardour sufficient to overcome obstacles and discouragements 
from which a mind of ordinary temperament would have re- 
coiled, at length resolved to state the peculiarity of his situ- 
ation to the author of the Arrangement of British Plants, who 
soon became so warmly interested in the welfare of this ge- 
nuine child of nature as to continue a correspondence mitt 
him during several years, and eventually to assist in advancing 
his favourite project of exploring the most remote regions of 
the earth. 
Singularly unpropitious as it may appear, Caley was no 
other than the son of a horse-dealer in the north of ‘England, 
and early initiated into the stables for regular training a his 
father’s business. 
In the eighth year of his age, he had, however, been placed 
at the free grammar school in Manchester in w hat was termed 
the lower Bible class; and, in the course of about four years, 
was advanced to the Latin Testament. 
The learned languages being, in his father’s opinion, little 
better than useless acquisitions to the embryo jockey, he was, 
for a short time, withdrawn from such studies ; but quickly 
reentered the same venerable establishment, in the hope of 
obtaining some knowledge of arithmetic. Brief, however, was 
the term of his reprieve; for, in his twelfth year, we find him 
altogether condemned to the drudgery of the stable. 
At this critical period occurred one of those singular coin- 
cidences which, though apparently fortuitous, often materially 
* Vide Memoirs and Tracts of William Withering, M.D. F.R.S., 2 vols. 
8vo. Longman. 
