292 HISTORY OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN. 
exhibition of what is beautiful in nature has a fine effect ; wind- 
ing walks, where the line of beauty is observed, are peculiagy 
pleasing ; at every turn we experience increased pleasure, from 
the combined beauties of art and nature ; and in this particular 
we remark the walks lately laid out in this garden, which 
certainly do honour to the good taste of the projector.”! 
In the same Magazine, LX XII (1810), p. 166, Dr. Neill, ina 
short note about the Botanic Garden, says—* This unfortunate 
garden, on the neglected state of which we have, for the last two 
years, been occasionally commenting, has sustained an additional 
misfortune in the loss of its superintendent, Mr. Thomas Sommer- 
ville. This promising young man, after having lingered for 
many months in a gradual decline, died on the 17th instant, at 
the early age of 27. He possessed very considerable abilities, 
both as a professional gardener and a botanist; and had 
lived, would doubtless have distinguished himself in this latter 
respect.” 
Mr. Robert Maughan,? in a footnote to “A List of the rarer 
Plants observed in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh (Memoirs 
of the Wernerian Natural History Society, Vol. I (1811), 
p. 246), refers to Sommerville as “a young man of very pro- 
mising abilities both as a professional gardener and as a 
botanist.” 
From these notices we may gather that Sommerville was a 
competent Principal Gardener, and that, like his immediate pre- 
decessors, he was also diligent in search after native plants. 
1 The style of the article suggests Dr. Neill as the write 
which he took to London, where he settled with a married daughter in 1840 on 
retirement from the Civil Service. His son, Edward James Maughan (1790-1868)— 
(b. Edinburgh, 1790 ; d. Edinburgh, 1868. Inspector of Taxes at Perth, afterwards 
at Edinburgh)—was also a keen botanist, and like his father is the authority for the 
localities of many Scottish plants in ‘*‘ Floras ” of the first half of last century. T° 
Miss Maughan, daughter of E. J. Maughan, who, with her sisters, is living at this date 
in Edinburgh, I am indebted for the information in this note. 
® Sommerville is cited in the list, which was in the press at the time of his death, 
as authority for the following plants and localities :—Beta maritima, seashore near 
Kirkcaldy ; Convallaria majalis, Arniston and Collington Woods ; Zpipactis cordata, 
firwood between Woodhouselea and the Bush, peat-bog near Ravelrig Toll, on the 
Pentlands ; Papaver cambricum, banks of Water of Leith near Woodhall ; Polytrichum 
alpinum, Eastern Cairn Hill, one of Pentlands; Px/monaria maritima, Fi 
coast near Seafield ces ; Orchis Conopsea vax. Tore albo, meadow ground south of 
Dalmahoy Hill ; Rudus Chamemorus, top of Eastern Cairn Hill ; Saxifraga umbrosa, 
Auchindenny Woods; Utricularia minor, peat-pit near Ravelrig Toll, 
