406 Memoir of William Maclure, 



example. Here are the books which he read — to him the 

 fountains of pleasure and instruction. Here has he con- 

 centrated the works of Nature, the sources of knowledge, 

 the incentives to study ; and, actuated by his liberal spirit, 

 we open our doors to all inquiring minds, and invite them to 

 participate, with us, in these invaluable acquisitions ; and 

 while we regard them as a trust to be transmitted unblemish- 

 ed to posterity, let us honour the name and cherish the 

 memory of the man from whom we derived them. 



Death of Mr. Loudon. 



On the 14th of Dec. 1843, died, at his house at Bayswater, John 

 Claudius Loudon, Esq., who, for nearly half a century, has been before 

 the public as a writer of numerous useful and popular works on gar- 

 dening, agriculture, and architecture. 



Mr. Loudon's father was a farmer, residing in the neighbourhood of 

 Edinburgh, where he was very highly respected ; but Mr. Loudon 

 was born on April 8th, 1783, at Cambuslang, in Lanarkshire, where his 

 mother's only sister resided, herself the mother of the Rev. Dr. Claudius 

 Buchanan, afterwards celebrated for his philanthropic labours in India. 

 Dr. Buchanan was several years older than Mr. Loudon, but there was 

 a singular coincidence in many points of their history. The two sisters 

 were, in both cases, left windows at an early age, with large families 

 which were brought up by the exertions of the eldest sons ; and both 

 mothers had the happiness of seeing their eldest sons become celebra- 

 ted. Mr. Loudon was brought up as a landscape-gardener, and began 

 to practise in 1803, when he came to England with numerous letters of 

 introduction to some of the first landed proprietors in the kingdom. 

 He afterwards took a large farm in Oxfordshire, where he resided in 

 1809. In the years 1813-14-15, he made the tour of Northern Europe, 

 traversing Sweden, Russia, Poland, and Austria; in 1819 he travelled 

 through Italy; and in 1828 through France and Germany. 



Mr. Loudon's career as an author began in 1803, when he was only 

 twenty years old, and it continued with very little interruption during 

 the space of forty years, being only concluded by his death. The first 

 works he published were the following : — Observations on laying out Pub- 

 lic Squares, in 1803, and on Plantations, in 1804 ; a Treatise on Hothouses, 

 in 1805, and on Country Residences, in 1806, both 4to.; Hints on the For- 



