X MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOE. 



forty years of his life, he was one of the most active supporters 

 of the liberal side in an overwhelmingly tory constituency ; and 

 one of his last acts was to undertake a canvass from house to 

 house of his parish at the election of last year. In matters 

 theological his views — which were much less common forty years 

 ago than they are now — were of the advanced broad school. 

 The society in which he moved was principally composed of men 

 of very different opinions ; and, as he delighted to speak out his 

 mind freely, he was constantly drawn into animated arguments 

 on social and political questions, in which, with his ready 

 sarcasm and great command of illustrative recollections and 

 anecdotes, no one was better qualified to hold his own against 

 all comers. 



When he was a child. Dr. Stanley, afterwards Bishop of 

 Norwich, was the rector of the neighbouring parish of Alderley, 

 and Mr. Watson always considered that it was from him that 

 his love for Botany got its first encouragement. " During my 

 school-days," he wrote, " a boyish fancy for plants and flori- 

 culture, which I had early inherited, attracted the favourable 

 notice of Dr. Stanley, whose opportune instruction and en- 

 couragement gave a scientific direction to the taste, and rendered 

 it the solace and relief of the child during a period of protracted 

 bodUy suffering. The direction once given was never wholly 

 lost, though discouraged in my own home and the means of im- 

 provement withheld under mistaken views." The late Dean 

 Stanley was one of his schoolfellows, and as he was a frail 

 delicate child, Mr. Watson, who was ten years older, often gave 

 him cakes and interfered for his protection. 



At first he was intended for the army, but at an early age 

 an accident from a cricket bat, which ruined in permanence the 

 joint of one of his knees, put a stop to this. His father wished 

 him to be a lawyer, but, although he followed up for some time 

 the necessary studies, the idea was never congenial to his own 

 mind. When he was about twenty-two, the bequest of a small 

 estate in Derbyshire from a member of his mother's family 



