256 



cident ; but it is an additional proof of Dr. Mantell's great forti- 

 tude, that frequently at the cost of much self-denial, and the pres- 

 sure of severe bodily pain, he made his appearance before a scientific 

 society, or in a lecture-room, and it was under such painful circum- 

 stances that he lectured only a few hours before his decease. 



This melancholy event was occasioned by his having prescribed 

 opium for himself to relieve the agony which he was enduring, and 

 which, although not sufficiently large to have produced fatal effects 

 on a full stomach, proved in his exhausted condition so powerful as 

 to induce death. 



George Richardson Porter. Esq. was born on the 29th of June, 

 1790; he was brought up for mercantile pursuits, and commenced 

 life as a wine-merchant in London. Being, however, unsuccessful in 

 business, he turned his attention to literature, for which he was 

 well qualified by his previous studies and pursuits ; as it was his 

 habit from earliest youth to compose (though not publish) papers on 

 any subject which interested him. His first published work was the 

 ' History of the Sugar-Cane' (in 1830). This book, together with 

 other circumstances, led to an introduction to Mr. Charles Knight, 

 who immediately gave him literary occupation, and the acquaintance 

 turned out to be highly advantageous to the author. 



Mr. Porter wrote several papers for the Companion to the Almanac, 

 &c., and was for some years a constant and valuable contributor to 

 the Penny Cyclopaedia. But Mr. Knight's just appreciation of his 

 abilities produced to him much greater and more lasting advantages 

 than casual employment for his pen. Mr. Knight having been asked 

 by the late Lord Auckland, when his Lordship was President of the 

 Board of Trade, to undertake the task of arranging and digesting for 

 the Board the mass of information contained in Official Books and 

 Parliamentary Returns, Mr. Knight felt that he could not enter 

 upon the work without injuring his publishing business, and he 

 declined it, but he at the same time strongly recommended Mr. 

 Porter to Lord Auckland as a person highly qualified for the under- 

 taking. 



This was in the year 1832, at which period the department of 

 statistics at the Board of Trade was first organized as an experiment ; 

 but at the end of two years the utility of the department was so 

 evident that it was definitely established, and Mr. Porter was placed 

 at its head as Superintendent. It was here that he had access to 

 those stores of information which his peculiarly statistical turn of 

 mind enabled him to calculate and arrange with so beneficial an 

 effect for public use, and few official volumes have tended more to 

 introduce important commercial reforms than that which emanated 

 yearly from the Statistical Department of the Board of Trade under 

 the laborious and careful editorship of Mr. Porter. 



In 1840 he was appointed senior member of the Railway Depart- 

 ment of the Board of Trade. In the transaction of the arduous 

 duties of that department, which, in 1845, when railway speculation 

 was at its height, increased to an overwhelming extent, Mr. Porter's 



