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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

the arguments used by Dr. Lindley in favour of glass were so conclusive that glass got the benefit and paper had to wait.

glass.

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.'

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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
Harvey.

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

states: "During forty-one years, his name has become familiar to every reader of illustrated books, to an extent which has been said to exhibit one of the most remarkable instances of industry in the history of Art." Harvey died at Prospect Lodge, Richmond, on the 13th of January. "When his old master, Bewick, on the 1st of January, 1815, sent him 'The History of British Birds,' the present was accompanied with the solemn exhortation-Look at them, as long as they last, on every New Year's Day, and at the same time resolve, with the help of the all-wise but unknowable God, to conduct yourself on every occasion as becomes a good man.' Those who had the happiness of William Harvey's acquaintance can testify how well he carried out, during a long career of labour and struggle, this advice of his early friend. A more conscientious or more amiable man has rarely discharged the duties of every relation of life."

Roffey

Samuel Roffey Maitland, D.D., the writer on Samuel theological history, died on the 19th of January, Maitland. aged seventy-four. He was appointed librarian at Lambeth by Archbishop Howley. The Athenæum of January 27th says: "Of his long list of works probably that on the Dark Ages will be that by which he is to be known. Over and above learning and

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