66 THE LIFE AND WORK OF GEORGE DON. 
ment. At the same time there can be no doubt that, as a botanist, 
he greatly excelled the Professor, who was an accomplished 
chemist, but had little turn for Botany. It thus happened that 
there soon arose a want of cordiality between the parties; and 
Mr. Don contemplated a return to his favourite spot of ground 
at Forfar.1 During his residence in Edinburgh he attended 
nearly all the medical classes with the view of ultimately following 
that profession.” I imagine, moreover, the love fora more un- 
trammeled life was a not unimportant factor in the reasons which 
led to Don’s return to Dovehillock.* The exact date I do not 
1 Dr. Neill gives another reason in the “Scots Magazine,” July 1809, 
where he deplores the want of financial support given to the garden, and then, 
2 ae of the salary of the Principal Gardener, he refers to Don in these 
te —“The most eminent practical botanist in this country, left his 
fae in disgust, it is said, on account of the insufficiency of the stipend.” 
This was written within about a couple of years of Don’s leaving the garden ; 
the biographical notice quoted in the text appeared about forty-five years 
after this event. Don himself refers to his post as not being lucrative. (See 
p- 191 of these “ Notes.”)—/. B. B. 
2 Don became neither a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, nor a 
licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians nor of the Royal College of 
Surgeons of Edinburgh, pe according to Dr. Neill, he subsequently 
practised medicine at Fo at classes Don attended can hardly now 
be ascertained. The inate ReaIR SR album of the University of Edinburgh 
does not contain the name George Don in any of the years from 1802 to 
1807, but in the Index of Matriculated paces for the year 1804 the name 
George Don occurs with the word “chem.” added, indicating, apparently, 
that the said George Don attended the cass of Dr. Thomas Charles Hope, 
then Professor of Chemistry. Class-records are not preserved in the 
University, and the earliest class-record in the possession of Professor Crum 
Brown, the present holder of the Chair of Chemistry, is that of the year 
1806. e have therefore no evidence by which we could identify this 
George Don with the Forfar botanist.—/. B. B. 
* Mr. Knox, after quoting in his notice of George Don the letter, transcribed 
‘on page 82 of this memoir, from Mr. Booth to Sir J. E. Smith, asks: —To what 
does Mr. Booth refer when he speaks of Don’s incapability of ‘sprawling at the 
footstool of power, and licking the holy dust’? Has it any connection with his 
short tenure of the office of Superintendent of the Royal Botanic Garden at 
Edinburgh? Did his political opinions make the place too hot for him? 
It may be so. There is no direct evidence as to what his politics were, but 
those of his Forfar associates are known to have been radical enough. Or is 
it wrong to attribute his resignation to this cause? Was it not rather due to 
the fact that he was too far away from his beloved Highland hills, and would 
not be cooped up in Edinburgh?” . 
We may, I think, regard Mr. Booth’s outburst as the declamation of an 
