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tion at the Horticultural Society he had the earliest opportunity of seeing 

 novelties, and made it his business to describe all that came before him. 

 He edited for a long series of years the ' Botanical Register,' a periodical 

 devoted to figures and descriptions of new or rare plants of general interest, 

 and contributed a large portion of many other serial works. His earliest 

 monograph was that on Roses, published in 1820 in his twenty-first year. 

 This was followed in 1821 by 'Collectanea Botanica,' an illustrated work 

 published at the expense of Mr. Cattley, an eminent amateur cultivator. 

 Soon after he became connected with the Horticultural Society he began 

 to devote himself specially to the study of Orchideae, a family the investi- 

 gation of which is extremely difficult unless from living plants, and which 

 from the multiplicity of its forms and the minuteness and intricacy of its 

 flowers, tasks to the utmost the powers of observation of the naturalist. 

 With this family his name will be for ever associated, not only as the de- 

 scriber of a very great number of new genera and species, but as the author 

 of a series of general works, the last of which, ' Folia Orchidacea,' to the 

 regret of all naturalists, was left unfinished at his death. It was with spe- 

 cial reference to the important service he rendered to science by these great 

 works that the Royal Medal of the Society was awarded to him in 1857, 

 though the value of his other labours was also duly recognized. 



Till he was past fifty. Dr. Lindley was wont to say that he never knew 

 what it was to feel tired either in body or mind. His first illness was 

 the result of his arduous duties as a juror of the Great Exhibition of 1851, 

 but a few months' rest seemed to restore him to his usual health. Unfor- 

 tunately, much against the wish of his family, he undertook the charge of 

 the Colonial Department of the Exhibition of 1862, and though constantly 

 ailing he refused to abandon his post, and carried its duties successfully to 

 a close. The effort was too great. His mental and physical powers re- 

 ceived a shock from which they never recovered. He was compelled to 

 relinquish all active employment, though his bodily health remained good 

 till the 1st of November in 1865, when he was carried off by apoplexy 

 in his sixty-seventh year. The date of his election into the Royal Society 

 is January 17, 1828. 



John "William Lubbock was born March 26, 1803. His father, the 

 second baronet of his name, was at the head of the banking and mercantile 

 firm of Lubbock and Co. The son, though of a tender constitution, was 

 partly educated at Eton, and was then placed under the care of Dr. (after- 

 wards Bishop) Maltby. Here he might have made progress in the classics, 

 but his turn had been towards exact science from his earliest years. His 

 father had intended him for Oxford, but, at his own earnest request, he 

 was placed at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1821. The continental ma- 

 thematics had been recently introduced into general study, and Mr. Lub- 

 bock, perceiving their superior power as means of investigation, spent his 

 first long vacation at Paris, and became a confirmed follower of that 



