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MEMOIR OF RD. LATHAM. 
In 179G (the year after receiving his honorary degree) he retired from business. 
The possession of a handsome fortune, almost entirely realized during a practice 
of two-and-thirty years, was the reward and testimony of his assiduity and 
success in the duties of his profession. And we beg the attention of our readers 
to the remarkable, the instructive fact, that in the leisure hours of these few 
years, by pursuits which constituted his relaxation and amusement amidst the 
fatigues of one of the most uncertain and most laborious of all professions, this 
indefatigable man contrived to establish a reputation such as few are fortunate 
enough to obtain by the uninterrupted employments of a whole life. When it is 
related that, in addition to his voluminous correspondence with eminent naturalists 
and friends on the subject of his favourite pursuits, the inspection of museums, 
and taking drawings of specimens lent to him for the purpose; he etched every 
copper plate in his original work, stuffed and set up almost every animal in his 
very extensive museum, and put together, with his own hands, a great many of 
the very cases in which they were disposed; it is difficult to conceive how 
he could have been, as he most certainly was, one not only of the most punctual 
of men of business, but of the most attentive to all the duties and courtesies 
of life. 
Romsey, in Hampshire, was chosen as the place of his retirement. It was the 
residence of his only surviving son, and in the neighbourhood of that of his only 
daughter. Here he continued, with the same unwearied eagerness, the pursuits 
he had always loved, and which his leisure now enabled him to extend. 
The world knew him almost exclusively as an ornithologist; but his friends 
were accustomed to consult him as one intimately versed in all the works of 
Nature and of art; and his surviving relatives can show that there is scarcely a 
department of Natural History which might not have been enriched from his 
original notes and manuscripts, and that many of the leading works of his day 
were deeply indebted to him for materials and revision. He was also a worthy 
Member of the Society of Antiquaries, into which he was elected in 1792 ; and 
the noble Abbey of Romsey supplied ample encouragement to an inquiring mind. 
At one time he intended to have presented to the world a history of this place, 
which he had actually completed, on a very extensive scale; and he was only 
deterred by the expense and risk of publication on a subject of mere local interest, 
except to the professed antiquary. But we would suggest, that it might still be 
worth while for the Society of Antiquaries to publish, at its own expense, the 
elaborate work of its late venerable member. 
He had enjoyed a leisure of more than twenty years in affluence, when a series 
of unexpected calamities in his family not only caused him the severest distress of 
mind, but plunged him at the age of eighty in a state of almost utter destitution. 
Happily a home was left him in the house of his son-in-law, W. N. Wickham, 
