LINNEAN SOCIETY OE LONDON. Ixxv 



In 1822 Lindley became Grarden Assistant Secretary to tlie 

 Horticultural Society, whose garden at Chiswick was then in pro- 

 cess of formation, partly under Lindley' s superintendence. In 

 1826 he was appointed sole Assistant Secretary to the Society, 

 and from this time may be said to have been its mainspring. In 

 1830, at the time of Mr. Sabine's resignation, owing to circum- 

 stances over which Mr. Lindley had no control, the Society got 

 into difficulties, which taxed his energies and attention to the 

 utmost to overcome. But in conjunction with Mr. Bentham, who 

 had succeeded Mr. Sabine as Honorary Secretary, these difficulties 

 were vanquished, chiefly by the institution of exhibitions of flowers 

 and fruit, in place of the former expensive fetes. Before Mr. 

 Bentham's resignation in 1841, arrangements were made by which 

 almost the whole business which had belonged to the office of 

 Honorary Secretary should fall upon Dr. Lindley, who thereupon 

 took the designation of Vice-Secretary. In this office he con- 

 tinued until 1858, when he became Secretary to the Society and 

 Member of the Council, a position which he held till the Exhibi- 

 tion of 1862, whose overwhelming business, in which he took so 

 active a part, compelled him to relinquish any further share in the 

 management of the Horticultural Society. 



Had Dr. Lindley done no more than attend to the affixirs of the 

 Society in the way he did, he would have accomplished as much 

 as most men could have done ; but his energy was inexhaustible 

 and until he had passed fifty years he never knew what it was to 

 be tired either in body or mind. In addition to his duties at the 

 Horticultural Society, he filled the Chair of Botany at the London 

 University College, and at the Botanic Garden of the Apothe- 

 caries' Company at Chelsea, in which latter establishment he also 

 held the office of ' Prcefectus horti.'' He filled the Chair at Uni- 

 versity College for thirty years, or from 1829 to 1861, and con- 

 tinued to lecture at Chelsea till 1853. His lectures were remark- 

 able for their clearness, conciseness, and the profuseness with 

 which they were illustrated. It was mainly for the use of his 

 numerous pupils in these classes that he published many of his 

 best-known works ; but his two general works, the ' Vegetable 

 Kingdom' and the 'Theory of Horticulture,' were the results of 

 long-continued labour bestowed on the collecting and digesting 

 of a vast store of materials. 



But the numerous works published under his name, and many 

 of which have undergone several editions, give but a partial idea 

 of the indomitable industry and energy of their author. The 



