MEMOIR OF DR. LINDLEY. 
435 
In this rank must be placed the eminent individual whose portrait is this month 
presented to the readers of The Naturalist. In the whole history of the science 
of Botany in this country perhaps no individual since the time of Ray has 
exercised so great influence on its advancement and cultivation as Dr. Lindley ; 
and whether he be regarded as the laborious writer, the public teacher, or the 
skilful practitioner of his science, it will be found that he stands equally pre¬ 
eminent. The following sketch will therefore be chiefly confined to an account 
of his public exertions, and his career as a botanist. 
John Lindley was born Feb. 5,1799, at Catton, near Norwich. His father at 
that time kept a considerable nursery; he is well known as an excellent practical 
horticulturist, and as the author of a work entitled A Guide to Orchard and 
Kitchen Gardens , a new edition of which has lately been edited by his son. 
Thus, from the circumstances of his family, Dr. Lindley was early introduced 
to those objects which have since obtained from him so much 'attention. He 
received his education at the grammar-school at Norwich, and produced his first 
work, a translation of Richard’s Analyse du Fruit , in the year 1819. 
In 1820 he published his Monographia Rosarum , a work displaying consider¬ 
able research in the subject of which it treated, and affording promise of future 
excellence. This work was illustrated by many drawings, nearly the whole of 
which were from the pencil of Dr. Lindley. In 1821 he produced a paper 
entitled “ Observations on Pomacece,” which was published in the thirteenth 
volume of the Linncean Transactions , and was but the beginning of a series of 
papers which have occasionally appeared in the Transactions of the Linnsean 
and Horticultural Societies. Of these papers generally it may be said that they 
display a thorough knowledge of what had been previously advanced on their 
respective subjects, and extensive observation of the organization and functions 
of the vegetable kingdom. Most of the views advanced in these papers have 
been reproduced in his larger works. 
In the same year Dr. Lindley also published two other works, the one 
entitled Monographia Digitalium 0 the other Collectanea Botanica. 
His productions up to this time may be considered but as slight preparations 
for a more laborious task, which, whether we look at its magnitude, or the 
comparatively short time in which it was executed, may be truly said to be 
Herculean. ’ We refer to the descriptive portion of Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Plants 
(1829). One of Professor Lindley’s bitter but ephemeral opponents describes 
this book as “ a miracle of industry,” whilst Mr. Loudon thus acknowledges the 
extent to which he is indebted to Dr. L. in the above work :— c; It remains only 
for the Editor to state that the botanical merits of this volume belong entirely 
to Professor Lindley with the exception of the execution of the designs, “ he 
determined the genera and the number of species to be arranged under them, 
VOL. IV.—NO. XXXII. 3 L 
