xl NOTES OF A BOTANIST 
to their pins for shelter and bedding." This is the last letter of 
any general or botanical interest. 
Mr. Hanbury died of typhoid fever, March 24, 1875. Spruce's 
last letter to him in the collection of the Pharm. Soc. is May 26, 
1874. 
The next letter (to Mr. Stabler, May 9, 1875) gives Spruce's 
own account of his great loss : — " It has been a time of trouble 
and suffering. First I had the great grief of losing one of my 
oldest and best friends, Daniel Hanbury, from what seemed at 
first only a slight attack of typhoid, but whose fatal progress 
could not be arrested. I have lost in him a town correspondent 
who was always ready to execute any little commission — the 
expense of which he has often generously borne himself — and to 
look up for me the latest information on any subject. Add to 
this his uniformly kind and genial disposition, and you will see 
that such a friend cannot easily be replaced. I enclose two 
notes for your perusal from his venerable father, who is eighty 
years old. Then I fell ill myself, with bronchitis accompanied 
by intermittent fever — every alternate day twelve hours' fever — 
and was some weeks before I shook it off. Lastly, within these 
few days there is something the matter with my right eye, which 
has prevented my using the microscope, and I am fearful I may 
be going to lose the sight of that eye." 
The only records of the last fifteen years of Spruce's life which 
are available are in the continuous series of letters to his life-long 
friend Mr. G. Stabler, who, both as schoolmaster, invalid, and 
botanist, was in complete sympathy with him. This gentleman 
— now afflicted with complete blindness — has kindly furnished 
me with copious extracts from these letters, from which I will 
now give such selected passages as seem of general or personal 
interest. They are largely occupied with his ever-varying degrees 
of capacity for study, with the progress of his great work on the 
Hepaticae, and succeeding papers on the same group, with often 
amusing records of his various botanical and other visitors, ^ 
among whom were several foreign botanists, his valued friend 
Sir Clements Markham, the late Duke of Argyll, the Duchess 
of Argyll, Lady Lanerton, and Lady Taunton. With the Duke 
he had two hours' talk, not only on natural history, for he 
says : " Besides these subjects, we chatted on many others, from 
the undulatory theory of light to Spanish and Russian politics ; 
and my guest was just as frank and simple as our valued friend 
Matthew Slater." 
Of one of his more distinguished visitors he writes (Oct. 
1878): "I had a visit yesterday from Lord Northbrook, a. . 
