Notices of New Books. 



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lation : the first was an accident ; the second a calamity. Few 

 biographers seem aware that they present us in their works a 

 double portraiture : the first and more striking photograph is 

 of themselves ; the second, less carefully executed, is of the sub- 

 ject of their researches. The little volume before us is an apt 

 illustration of this : the capture of a butterfly, or the complimentary 

 naming of a snail, together with similar trivialities, impress the 

 biographer with their importance, but would have been utterly un- 

 heeded at the moment, and in a few days totally forgotten, by the 

 individual in whose praise they are now recorded. How many 

 instances of a similar kind occur in Boswell's 4 Life of Johnson and 

 yet one cannot regret, or regard as useless, the truthful picture that is 

 thus preserved of both. 



The chief study of Henslow's earlier years appears to have been 

 Mineralogy, and his proficiency in this science was sufficient to pro- 

 cure for him, in 1823, a Professorship in the University of Cambridge; 

 but two years afterwards a more congenial chair became vacant, that 

 of Botany. For many years he had regarded plants with a very loving 

 eye ; he longed for greater opportunities of studying them, and he 

 had learned that in order to teach, it is indispensable to learn : in 

 seeking the botanical chair he was opposed by William Kirby, who in 

 early years had made plants a leading study, and had been led step 

 by step into Entomology, mainly by the connexion of insects with 

 plants. In the contest for Dr. Martyn's vacant chair, Henslow was 

 successful ; and thenceforward he became the leading botanist, as 

 Kirby the leading entomologist, of his country. In saying this we do 

 not pretend to assert that he ever rivalled a Borrer, a Watson or a 

 Babington, in the knowledge of British species ; but he acquired a 

 comprehensive and intimate knowledge of the entire science, as proved 

 by his ' Principles of Descriptive and Physiological Botany, 1 pub- 

 lished in 1836, — a work which has scarcely an equal for clearness, 

 simplicity and completeness, and which has served as the foundation 

 of that shoal of introductory works which have of late years inundated 

 the science. 



But let us turn from his books to the man himself : here is a sketch 

 from the pen of Mr. Darwin, the worthy pupil of a worthy master : — 

 " I went to Cambridge early in the year 1828, and soon became 

 acquainted, through some of my brother entomologists, with Profes- 

 sor Henslow, for all who cared for any branch of Natural History 

 were equally encouraged by him. Nothing could be more simple, 

 cordial and unpretending than the encouragement he afforded to all 



