Biography. 127 



Art. IX. Biography. 

 Some Account of Richard Richardson, Esq. M.D. F.R.S. fyc. 



This celebrated naturalist was born at North Bierly, the residence of 

 his ancestors, near Bradford, in Yorkshire, in 1663, being baptised on the 

 24th of September in that year. He cultivated, at an early age, with his 

 own hands, all the exotic as well as rarer indigenous plants he could find 

 in his neighbourhood, disposing them, while yet a boy, as I was informed 

 by his son, according to what he then thought their natural affinities, 

 especially the orchideae, umbelliferae, and cruciferse, of which I saw a great 

 many still thriving there, long after his death, in 1 776. 



Possessing a handsome estate, and devoid of all that ambition which 

 stimulates many country gentlemen to preside on a bench of magistrates, he 

 studied and practised medicine, rather from a wish to alleviate the suffer- 

 ings of his neighbours and friends than to enrich himself; and, when, in 

 maturer age, his great sagacity in discovering the cause of most diseases 

 was aided by having experienced the best modes of curing them, he was 

 frequently called to a great distance, throughout his own and the adjoining 

 counties; on these occasions, if the patient was not opulent, he only 

 would take such a fee as to repay the expense of his journey, which was 

 generally made on horseback. 



At what period he first visited the Continent I cannot learn; but his son 

 told me that a plant of Cjc&s circinalis of Linnets Sp. PL ed. 2., and Hort. 

 Cliff., was sent to North Bierly, in 1 702, from Leyden, where, I suspect, 

 he had graduated ; and that plant, when I saw it in 1776, had acquired 

 a stem three feet in height. 



To this species of Cycas, in a work which has long been ready for the 

 press, I shall restore Herman's original name of Japonica, expressing the 

 eastern boundary of the genus, and which, instead of misleading, will be 

 useful to our gardeners ; for most Japanese plants endure a great degree of 

 cold in winter, if they have sufficient heat in summer. This grows wild 

 abundantly in the islands of Lequeo and Kinsin, and is much more hardy 

 than two other species, now confounded under the same name : 1. Cycas 

 circinalis of Petit-Thouars, which is indigenous in the islands of Madagas- 

 car, Java, and Amboyna; 2dly, Cycas circinalis of Linnets Mantissa, and 

 Fl. Zeylanica, which is the true Todda pdnna of Rheede, and probably con- 

 fined to the Mysore range of mountains. 



Little more is known of Dr. Richard Richardson, at this distance of time, 

 even by his son, and immediate heiress Miss Currer, than that the mildness 

 of his disposition, elegance of language, and liberality in communicating his 

 deep knowledge to the various scientific men with whom he became ac- 

 quainted, soon endeared him to them all, and he was elected into the 

 Royal Society in 1712. How accurately he distinguished both the crypto- 

 gamous and phasnogamous vegetables of Great Britain will remain proved 

 to ages by the third edition of Ray's Synopsis. 



The green-house at North Bierly was, like most of that period, covered 

 by a slated roof, and only glazed in front ; but the stove had partly a double 

 roof of glass, and this must have been erected before the commencement 

 of the 17th century; for I saw a memorandum in one of Dr. Richardson's 

 books, that he had sent a pine-apple, weighing 5lb. and 1 oz. on the autumnal 

 equinox of 1698, to his friend and most skilful botanist Mr. Ray, then con- 

 fined with a bad leg. 



I believe he never published any work, except the following dissert- 

 ations : — 



On Subterraneous Trees, &c. : Phil. Trans., vol. xix, p. 526. Observa- 

 tions on a Boy who lived to seventeen years of age withoutany Secre- 



