received for daring to publish the first British Flora, arranged according to the Natural system, is no isolated case. Dr. Lindley's history, and that of several other men of genius, furnish additional examples......The opposition he met with put him on his mettle, made him one of the most powerful and ready writers of the day, and secured to him a niche of fame which his early opponents never attained." He was assistant The Royal secretary to the Royal Horticultural Society Horticultural from 1822 to 1858, when he was appointed Society. The secretary, which post he retained until 1862, and was Professor of Botany at University College, London, from 1829 to 1861. He had long felt the want of a good weekly gardening paper, such as Fred. Otto had established in Berlin, and the Gardeners' Chronicle was estab Gardeners' lished in lished in 1841. Dr. Lindley became the Chronicle. The Botanical editor, and held that office until a short time before his death. "The Botanical Register Register. offered another opportunity of advancing his favourite science, by figuring and describing the most remarkable new plants that came to this country. Many of our garden pets, the names of which have now become household words, such as Verbenas and Calceolarias, were first made known in the pages of that periodical. Dr. Lindley's particular favourites, however, were none of the plants just mentioned, but those most singular of all forms of vegetation the Orchids; and it may Orchids. be said that he brought them into fashion. For many years he laboured incessantly to describe their numerous representatives, and interpret their singular structure. It took him ten years. to work out 'The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants,' and another ten years to complete various memoirs on these plants, which he published under the name of 'Folia Orchidacea.' The writings of Dr. Lindley form quite a library by themselves. There are amongst them both elementary books and works intended merely for leading men of science. His 'Fossil Flora of Great Britain' has endeared him to geologists, and his various works on gardening to horticulturists. Perhaps the most widely known of all his works is 'The Vegetable Kingdom,' which appeared in 1846." 'The Vegetable Kingdom.' Sir Robert Peel consulted Dr. Lindley previous to including in his celebrated Budget of 1845 the repeal of the duty upon glass. Sir Robert Repeal of the duty upon hesitated whether to free glass or paper; but glass. the arguments used by Dr. Lindley in favour of glass were so conclusive that glass got the benefit and paper had to wait. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell died very suddenly Mrs. Gaskell. at Alton, near Manchester, on Sunday, the 12th of November. The Athenæum on the 18th states Obituary of the year. "that her maiden name was Stevenson, that she was brought up under singularly solitary circumstances in a small Cheshire town reproduced in her Cranford' (the most perfect of her works), and that she married an accomplished and lettered minister of the Unitarian persuasion." In her first book, 'Mary Barton,' "the Lancashire dialect, which had been till then a sort of uncouth curiosity, made known to a few philologists in 'Tim Bobbin,' was almost raised to the level of the 'broad Doric' used by Scott in his northern novels. That story at once made a place for her. It was followed by Ruth'...... by sundry minor stories (among which 'Morton Hall' is expressly to be commemorated as powerful, pathetic and individual),-by 'Cranford,' which may be set by the side of Miss Austen's minute pictures, - by North and South," and by the 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' 'Sylvia's Lovers,' and 'Cousin Phillis.' The obituary of the year also included John Cassell, who died on the 2nd of April, at the age of forty-eight; Richard Cobden; Samuel Lucas, managing proprietor of the Morning Star; Prof. Aytoun; Mr. Haliburton ("Sam Slick"); Admiral W. H. Smyth; Mrs. Moore, the widow of the poet; Dr. Richardson, the laborious compiler of the dictionary which bears his name; and Lord Palmerston. CHAPTER VI. THE ATHENÆUM, 1866-1869. 1866. Exhibition at THE year 1866 opens with plans for the benefit of the working classes. On the 6th of January it was announced that the Corporation of the City of London had voted the use of the Guildhall for the purposes of an Industrial Exhibi-_Industrial tion. This the Lord Mayor inaugurated on the the Guildhall. 6th of March, and it was proposed to devote the surplus funds towards the establishment of a Free Public Library for the City. It was also stated that land had been secured for the purpose of a park for the people to be called Southwark Park, Bermondsey. The purchase Southwark money amounted to about 911 per acre. The extension of the Metropolitan Railway system was still going on: "London is again in a state of siege, engineers surround her on every side, and in a dozen places threaten to make a breach." The Athenæum on the 17th of March sounds a note of alarm in reference to the large investments being made by the general public in limited liability companies. Park. "Black Friday." The mania was so great that as many as 1,021 companies had been registered during the previous twelve months: "Of these how many are wise undertakings; how many will just manage to struggle on for a series of years; and how many are pure commercial frauds, established for the spoliation of simpletons by plausible swindlers, who ought to be working in gangs at Portland?" Eight weeks from the date of this warning, Friday, the 11th of May, was to be ever memorable as "Black Friday," a day of great commercial panic. Overend, Gurney & Co. stopped payment, the Bank Act was suspended, and on the following day the rate of discount was raised to ten per cent. On the 20th of January the formation of the Aeronautical Aeronautical Society is announced, with the Society Duke of Argyll as president, James Glaisher treasurer, and F. W. Brearey honorary secretary. founded. William On the same date an obituary notice appears of William Harvey, the engraver. He was born at Newcastle in 1796, and apprenticed to Bewick at the age of fourteen. In 1817 he came to London, placing himself as a pupil under Haydon, and in 1821 produced his large cut from Haydon's picture of the Death of Dentatus,' After 1824 Mr. Harvey devoted himself exclusively to designing for copperplate and wood engravers, and the Athenæum |