MEMOIR OF PENNANT. 
37 
while searching for materials to pourtray the charac- 
ter of our British naturalist. His career, we have 
before said, has been void of all romance, and may 
be comprised in exercising his duties as a parent, and 
active country gentleman ; while the vacancies will 
be filled up by a perusal of the interesting works 
which he has left, and of which we have now tried 
to give a description. 
The disposition of Pennant was one of great ac- 
tivity, a quality which was diffused over his bodily 
as w'ell as mental powers. He travelled on horse- 
back, and in this manner performed all his tours : 
he was an early riser, and was extremely temperate 
in his living, refraining always ft-om supper, which 
he stigmatizes as the “ meal of excess.” 
His health continued unimpaired till within a few 
years of his decease. The illness and death of a 
favourite daughter threw the first clouds over the 
serenity of his old age ; and soon after he broke the 
patella of his knee while ascending a flight of steps — 
an accident which confined him long to his room, and 
though it allowed him to pursue his usual exercise 
on horseback, the bones never united, and he could 
not walk afterwards without difficulty. In another 
year his spirits seem to have improved, for he pub- 
lished his account of the parishes of Whiteford and 
Holywell, with the motto “ Resurgam but it 
was only a passing exertion, and he began to decline 
gradually. This was two years previous to bis 
death, and during that time he continued to revise 
