PREFACE. 



The following Memoir was originally intended for Dr. Harvey's 

 personal friends only; but the .number of these was so large, 

 he was himself so universally beloved, and his character — as 

 exhibited in his letters — so peculiar, and in many ways so 

 interesting to the ordinary student of biography, that it has 

 been decided to publish it. 



A place among the great scientific theorists of his age cannot 

 be claimed for Dr. Harvey. His fame as a Naturalist rests 

 mainly upon his conscientious labours in that vast field of 

 description and classification in which he was from first to last — 

 from the first dawn of his genius in his happy schoolboy days to 

 its premature setting — so enthusiastic and indefatigable a worker 

 Here his marvellous accuracy and minuteness of observation, 

 and exquisite delineation of the objects which came under his 

 untiring eye and hand, can only be appreciated by the earnest 

 student of Nature who goes with him over the same ground in 

 the same spirit. 



His character, as a Botanist thoroughly devoted to his 

 vocation, and thoroughly impressed with a sense of the divine 

 beauty and magnificence exhibited in the lowliest seaweed, 

 can only be fully seen in his letters to his most intimate friends. 

 In these we get into the very heart of the man himself ; a man 

 of whom it might be said with the fullest truth : — 



" To him the meanest flower that blows could give 

 Thoughts that did often lie too deep for tears." 



With these private letters, which may be truly called autobio- 

 graphic, the Memoir is therefore almost entirely occupied ; the 



