344 



LOVELL REEVE : A BRIEF SKETCH OF HIS 



LIFE AND CAREER, 



WITH A FRAGMENT OF AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, EXCERPTS FROM HIS 



DIARY (1849), AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



By JAMES COSMO MELVILL, M.A., F.L.S. 



(Read before the Society, May 5th, 1900). 



Having always felt a great admiration for the subject of the following 

 notes, I regret that I can only recollect two or three occasions when 

 I had the pleasure of seeing him. One of these was during the 

 famous sale of ; the collection of 



science. On this t ' vl ■ \ occasion were 



what late in the ^"--s: — ilW^ morning of the 



third day of the lovell reeve. sale, 1 Mr. Lovell 



Reeve, who was even then suffering from the illness which seven 

 months later terminated his useful life so prematurely, was wheeled 

 in, in a bath chair, immediately to become surrounded with his friends; 

 very soon one of the prizes of this famous collection, the most perfect 

 Conns gloria maris known, was put up for public competition, and it 

 eventually fell to him at a high figure, very shortly afterwards to find 

 its permanent home in the Australian Museum at Sydney. 



Some few years ago I made the acquaintance of Miss Jessie Reeve 

 at Folkestone and found she was in possession of some very interesting, 

 if somewhat fragmentary, memoranda belonging to her father. All 



1 Mr. Reeve's private collection had been sold also at Steven's Auction Rooms two years 

 previously. 



