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PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



were things almost unintelligible to him ; a geniality of disposition 

 that rendered him an attractive companion from his childhood 

 upwards ; a temper of which he was never known to lose command, 

 even by his most intimate friends ; an organization of brain that 

 rendered all subjects of study equally easy of acquirement ; a keen 

 love of nature and of natural knowledge, and ardour in communi- 

 cating it ; a quick perception, excellent powers of generalisation, 

 the largest charity, a total absence of vanity or pride, a winning 

 countenance, and a robust frame. Pew men indeed were more 

 gifted by nature to take a commanding position in the many 

 spheres of life, in one or other of which he was always busy ; few 

 had more need of that balance of powers of mind which his Uni- 

 versity tutors recognised as something unusual, and the phrenolo- 

 gists accounted for by the form of his head, which they considered 

 faultless. That this is no exaggerated estimate of the subject of this 

 sketch, the following brief notice of his career will prove. 



"He was born on the 6th of February, 1796, at Eochester, 

 where his father was in business as a solicitor, the eldest of 

 eleven children, of whom four sisters only survive him. His scien- 

 tific powers and love of natural history, which were very early dis- 

 played, were inherited both from his father, who was a great reader 

 of natural history books, and devoted to the observation and keep- 

 ing of birds and other animals, and from his grandfather, Sir John 

 Henslow, surveyor of the navy, who united to a scientific knowledge 

 of naval architecture, great ingenuity and skill in designing. He was 

 educated first at a free school in Rochester, and afterwards at Dr. 

 Jephson's, of Camberwell. During the former period he delighted 

 in making excursions on the Medway, and especially in hunting 

 for insects, and in rearing them and observing their habits. It 

 w as during the latter period that he first learned how to arrange 

 and systematize ; and the delight in analysing, understanding, 

 and illustrating, gradually equalled that of collecting ; and these 

 were thenceforward the ruling passions of his life. 



" In 1814 he was entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, and 

 graduated as 16th Wrangler in 1818, in which year also he joined 

 the Linnean Society. During his college career he continued an 

 active naturalist; declining to compete for the much higher aca- 

 demic position which, with his mathematical powers, he might 

 easily have attained, lie preferred substantial knowledge, studied 

 chemistry under Prof, dimming, mineralogy under Dr. Clarke, 

 laboured hard at geology as an original inquirer with but little aid, 



and became a Fellow of the Geological Society in 1810. 



