XXXI 



(to whom he was introduced by Sir William (then Mr.) Hooker, his earliest 

 scientific friend) the position of his assistant librarian, and at this early age 

 began the long series of works with which his name will be for ever iden- 

 tified by the publication of a translation of Richard's ' Analyse du Fruit,' 

 made at Mr. Hooker's house at Halesv/orth in Suffolk at one sitting, which, 

 however, lasted two days and three nights. 



In 1822 Lindley became Garden Assistant Secretary to tbe Horticul- 

 tural Society, an appointment which influenced his whole career, as he re- 

 mained connected with that Society, in one capacity or other, throughout 

 his whole working life. The gardens at Chiswick were at that time in 

 process of formation, and to their development he devoted all his energy. 

 In 1826 he became sole Assistant Secretary, conducting, under the Hono- 

 rary Secretaries Joseph Sabine, Bentham, Henderson, Gowen, and Royle, all 

 the proceedings of that active Society, which has for so long a time taken a 

 prominent part in advancing horticulture to the position it now holds in 

 this country both as a science and an art. 



Not satisfied with these laborious duties, which would have tasked all 

 the energies of a man of ordinary capacity for work, Lindley became in 

 1829 Professor of Botany in University College, an appointment which he 

 held for upwards of thirty years. He was a remarkably exact, clear and im- 

 pressive lecturer, possessed an admirable faculty of lucid exposition, and 

 was most copious in illustration. He never read his lectures, but they were 

 always carefully studied beforehand. 



Nor were these various occupations enough for his ever active mind. 

 Thoroughly versed in the literature of Botany and its kindred sciences, he 

 found time to prepare a series of general works on almost every branch of 

 the science, all of great value, and many of them still standard books of 

 reference in the hands of students. Beginning his career as a naturalist at 

 the time when the natural system of Botany was acquiring its highest de- 

 velopment in France, though known only to a few in England, where the 

 Linnean system was still universally taught, Lindley brought all the weight 

 of his teaching and all the force of his controversial powers to the support 

 of the new system, and was, if not the leader, at least the most prominent 

 advocate of a change now universal. His ' Synopsis of the British Flora,' 

 published in 1829, was followed by an * Introduction to the Natural System 

 of Botany' in 1830, which passed through a second edition in 1836, and 

 took the form of ' The Vegetable Kingdom,' probably the best known of 

 all his works, in 1846. To Medical Botany he contributed an excellent 

 Flora Medica, to Palaeontology the well-known Fossil Flora, in which 

 Mr. Hutton was his coadjutor, and to Horticultural Science a work on the 

 Theory and Practice of Horticulture, which he himself regarded as perhaps 

 his most important work, probably because it contained the greatest amount 

 of original matter. 



To these general works must be added a long series of monographs and 

 isolated descriptions of plants in a great many periodicals. From his posi- 



