2 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



His earliest enjoyment of the seaside was at Yonghal, and 

 there were gathered his first shells, which in time extended to a 

 considerable collection of both foreign and native. His taste 

 for conchology, as well as other branches of science, was fostered 

 by the intimacy then formed with Robert Ball, afterwards so 

 well known as an eminent naturalist, with whose family he there 

 became acquainted. In 1844 Mr. Ball was appointed director 

 of the museum in Trinity College, Dublin, and by Dr. Harvey's 

 election to the botanical chair in the same year, the friends 

 were again brought into happy association until the lamented 

 death of Dr. Ball in the spring of 1857. 



The first boarding school to which William was sent was that 

 of Newtown, near Waterford. There he soon outstripped his 

 schoolfellows, and at the early age of thirteen was removed to 

 Ballitore school, in the county of Kildare, then conducted by 

 James White, who joined to extensive attainments in classical, 

 scientific, and general literature, a knowledge of the various 

 branches of natural science, which enabled him to appreciate, 

 and induced him to foster the peculiar tastes of his pupil. 

 At this school, where many of William's brothers and cousins 

 had received their education, he found wider scope for his 

 tastes, and more congenial society ; not only as regarded his 

 school companions, but among the families of the village, which 

 at that time contained an uncommon proportion of persons of 

 cultivated minis and literary acquirements. Here also the 

 field of natural history opened more fully to the cravings of his 

 youthful enthusiasm. 



The French teacher in the school at this time, Theodore 

 Eugene Suliot, was a young man of singular talent, who fully 

 understood the mind of his gifted pupil, and a cordial intimacy 

 quickly sprung up between them. Mr. Suliot thus writes (in 

 forwarding to the editor what he calls "a few relics of that 

 delightful friendship with the most engaging boy it was ever 

 my fortune to know ") : — 



" Many notes passed between us during my intercourse with 

 him in Ballitore, in the nondescript character of half-tutor, 

 half-playfellow. 1 find no traces of these now. I had other 

 letters from him, besides the few from which I selected the 

 following extracts, between the time of his leaving school and 

 his departure for the Cape, but they are lost, with many other 



