49 



gn ^Icmoriam 



LORD TABLEY AND PROF. CARDALE BABINGTON. 



In December and July of the year just over, Botanology has had to 

 deplore the decease of two of its not least eminent Gamaliels of 

 science, whom it was the privilege of the writer to have been brought 

 into contact with. In Lord Tabley (J. B. Leicester Warren) we saw 

 an instance of that dual genius which must ever be rare, the union 

 of the true poet with the accurate scientist. As a poet of deep 



and 



in the Classic 



crucible (as to form of expression) that distinguished Savage Landor 

 and in a less degree the elder Darwin — he had attained a wide 

 recognition amongst the cultured ; and in no lesser sense, to a 

 generation of field-botanists now in their prime, were the results of 

 his broad views and acute observations in the field, in connection 

 with the Brambles and the neglected Docks, appreciated as specially 

 valuable. So fond or proud was he of the Rosacea^ and Polygonacere 

 that his very Book-Plate embodied conventionalised representations 

 of the Blackberry, Rose and Rumex of his native land. It is greatly 

 to be regretted that his long-looked-for Flora of Cheshire, for which 

 he had amassed much detail, has not had the benefit of his final 

 arranging. With Yorkshire his connection was slight enough, but he 

 had visited the Sheffield district with the late Mr. Newbould for 

 bramble study, and to the same end he carefully went over, named 

 and annotated the writer's gatherings of that genus. The result, of 

 value still and for all time, in a broad common-sense view of affinities 

 modified by environment, due to his experience and acumen, may 

 be seen in ' West Yorkshire ' and the writer's later * Flora/ 



At no time, either, had I an intimate acquaintance with the 

 Cambridge Professor of Botany, who died at a ripe old age in July 

 last, nor was his tie with the North of England either close or current* 

 yet he, too, visited Sheffield, Whitby and the dales in years long past 

 with eyes open for his 'beloved blackberries/ and his * British Rubi* 

 (1869), as well as later 'Notes' due to correspondence about them 

 with Gilbert Baker, the writer, Fox Lee, etc., contain many references 

 to the county o( broad acres, and testify to his skill and ingenuity as 

 the pioneer-chief of the ' splitting J school. But of late years — though 

 in no unkind spirit is it said— the ageing Professor's prowess in 

 classification, his grasp of those small essentials which confer the 

 ability to name dried specimens of such a critical group as Rubi, at 

 any rate, fell to its nadir. So much so that, friend and whilom 

 disciple, the Hon. J. L. Warren (as he was then) wrote to me in 

 1876 : 'Both Bloxam and Babington are practically out of the field 



Feb. 1396. 



