president's address. 



255 



successive parliaments until he retired from public life. The 

 same amiability of character which was so attractive in mature 

 age was his characteristic in early youth, as I know from an old 

 friend in Cumberland, his contemporary to the very year, who 

 received him on his entering public school life at Harrow. He 

 became afterwards a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. The 

 Master of the Temple paid a graceful and touching tribute to 

 the memory of our late revered colleague, as a valued and beloved 

 member of that learned house, whose loss was universally de- 

 plored. 



Mr. Eowland Burdon, of Castle Eden, whose beautiful "Dene" 

 is so well known as a veritable paradise to the North Country 

 naturalist, became a member of our Club in 1850, and was 

 President in 1856. I had not the privilege of his acquaintance, 

 though knowing much of him, especially through my friend, 

 Canon Tristram, who for many years was his parish clergyman, 

 and to whom I am indebted for some particulars connected with 

 his scientific and other acquirements. Like Mr. Ingham, Mr. 

 Burdon was a distinguished member of Oriel College in its 

 palmiest days. As far as public life went he gave to his county, 

 as the much-respected Chairman of the Bench of Magistrates, 

 and in other ways, talents which his friends considered to be 

 intended by Providence for his country and the world. But at 

 the same time he was an accomplished naturalist, as well as a 

 philologist, historian, antiquary, and a consummate critic. His 

 library gave an idea of his varied and rarely-equalled intellec- 

 tual grasp. As a member of the Tyneside Eield Club I should 

 mention his zeal to preserve the indigenous plants, nearly a 

 score of which linger almost solely at Castle Eden, where they 

 owe their continued existence entirely to his energetic watch- 

 fulness, Cypripedium calceolus, Epipactis ensifolia, Pyrola rotun- 

 difolia, Ophrys muscifera, and many others. Mr. Burdon was 

 also master of the geology of his district, the Carboniferous and 

 the Permian rocks. Yet from his amiable constitutional timidity 

 his knowledge of most of these subjects was only given out un- 

 fortunately in private conversation, and in his many notes on the 

 margin of the books which he read. He had a true naturalist's 



