230 Notice of the late Mr. George Caley. 
With hearty goodwill did the present writer surrender his 
elementary works, both in the Latin and French languages, 
for the benefit of the youthful adventurer, and they were 
quickly forwarded according to his instructions. 
But, alas! the ardent imagination of our aspirant had well- 
nigh outstripped all reasonable expectation ; and a series of 
remonstr ances with the President of the Royal Society, some- 
what injudiciously, not to say intemper ately, urged, for a sea- 
son blasted his high-flown hopes. He, whose “delight was 
“ To wander as free as the wind on the mountains,” 
could ill brook, even for a limited period, the confinement of 
stated hours, or the restraint of garden walls. After having 
vainly endeavoured to convince Sir Joseph that he needed no 
such initiatory course, and that he was already qualified for 
the projected expedition, he withdrew in disgust, again to 
ruminate on his wayward fate amid the wilds on Iuarieehire! 
Now, that talent of every kind is likely to be forced and 
fostered, perhaps, as some may apprehend, to an extreme 
degree, let those whose warm temperaments glow with the 
laudable desire to excel, beware of yielding to that seductive 
self-sufficiency which is but too apt to resist the wiser counsels 
of experience, and thus, in innumerable instances, to make 
wreck of the brightest expectations. 
And such disappointment would, probably, have prema- 
turely terminated the career of Caley’ s usefulness, but that he 
was so fortunate as to have engaged the attention of a patron 
not less habituated to detect merit, even through a rough 
exterior, than to exercise thereon a characteristic generosity 
and benevolence. 
After an alienation, happily of no long continuance, Caley 
once more thought proper to address Sir Joseph, in terms 
which drew forth the reply here inserted, and which, I am 
confident, will be considered as a notable instance of amiable 
condescension, of honest and well timed rebuke : — 
** Soho Square, July 16. 1798. 
“¢ Mr. Carey, —Whoever told you that I said I was angry 
with you has been mistaken. I am sure I never said so, be- 
cause I never felt myself angry with you. 
* T told you, when I first wrote to you, that unless you 
would gain your livelihood as a gardener, while you made 
tw) 
yourself, acquainted with the plants cultivated in the gar dens 
here, I did not mean to get employment for you as a botanical 
traveller. By so doing, “al jut you in the same situation as 
iy iy 
Aiton, Lee, Dickson, and Mason were in, when they were of 
