364 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



botanists. Well, we have learned to eat them : they make a 

 rich stew, with a not unpleasant but weak mushroom flavour. 

 In want of better they are palatable enough. The French 

 don't eat our English mushroom, though it is common enough 

 in the fields. Poor ignorant creatures ! 



St. Servan, August 16th. 

 Your letter reached me a few days ago, but I had no spirit 

 to write. I did not hear of poor Sir William Hooker's illness 

 till many days after he had been laid in earth. I have 

 written to Kew, but they did not know where we were — hence 

 the silence. His illness was very short, only of three days' dura- 

 tion — taken ill on Wednesday, and dying on Saturday afternoon. 

 It was an affection of the throat, which it appears had been for 

 some weeks endemical at Kew. To me it seems as if I could 

 scarcely yet realise his death, so soon has he gone from full 

 activity and energy of mind, as shown in the last letter I had 

 from him some six weeks since. It was written with all the 

 old vigour as of twenty years ago. 



We shall never see his like again. I never knew his equal in 

 many invaluable qualities. He deserved all the credit of 

 making the "Museum" of vegetable objects — the first of the 

 kind established, and by far the finest to be seen anywhere. I 

 remember its early beginnings, in some old drawers, and now it 

 fills three large separate buildings, and will require more room 

 if it be kept up with his energy. The great secret of his success 

 was that he deemed nothing too small for his notice, if it 

 illustrated any fact in science or economy, and nothing too 

 difficult to be attempted in furthering the collections. And 

 with all his out-door labours, taking several hours a day, and 

 his very large correspondence with all parts of the world, kept 

 np to the last; few men have published more in their time than 

 he has. Latterly his books were written after eight o'clock at 

 night, and he generally worked till near midnight. He leaves a 

 work on Ferns unfinished, which he began about a year ago, and 

 was busy upon, up to the very last few days. Green indeed and 

 full of love and honour was his old age, and he sank peacefully 

 at last without much protracted suffering, and full of hope. 

 " Let me die the death of the righteous, and my last end be 

 like his." 



