The late Professor Edivard Forbes. 135 



men as Mr John Goodsir, Mr James Syme, Mr James^Miller, 

 Dr J. Y. Simpson, Dr J. H. Balfour, Dr J. H. Bennett, and 

 others, already professors in that same university within'the 

 walls of which, as youthful companions, their mutual friendship 

 had commenced, — a friendship unbroken but by death. 



Edward Forbes, of Scottish extraction, was born in the Isle 

 of Man, on the 12th day of February 1815. We have heard 

 himself say, that had he made the attempt to define the period 

 when the love of natural history first arose as the day-star in 

 his heart, he must have searched back into the dim and^dis- 

 tant recollections of his earliest childhood. This peculiar 

 propensity, or rather passion, must have been in-bred, and all 

 his own ; for it is understood that no individual of his family, 

 nor even of his acquaintanceship, had the slightest taste for 

 scientific studies. So this surpassing love of natural history 

 must have been either born with him, or speedily and spon- 

 taneously generated in his brains. 



His first printed guide-book was one of the driest, — 

 Turton's English Edition of the Systema Natural of Lin- 

 nseus ; and we know, on his own authority , that by the time he 

 was seven years of age, he had formed a small but tolerably 

 well arranged museum of his own. Next, though still in very 

 early life, came the perusal of Buckland's Reliquim Dilu- 

 vianai, Parkinson's Organic Remains, and Conybeare's Geo- 

 logy of England, — all rather difficult reading for a boy, and 

 possibly rather wrestled with than fully understood. However, 

 there is nothing so good as a high standard in the intellectual 

 struggles of youth, as difficulties ere long spontaneously un- 

 fold themselves, and become smooth and shapely, just as the 

 wings of the butterfly enlarge and brighten, when the hard- 

 ened coating of the chrysalis is cast away. Neither is there 

 anything so bad as bringing all early instruction down to a 

 level with the limited understanding of childhood. There are 

 few really good books which even full-grown men completely 

 comprehend; but this, though an argument against the capacity 

 of the readers, is surely none against the excellence of the 

 books. Those above named, however, when he was not more 

 than twelve years of age, inspired Edward Forbes with a 



