Watson, Dr. Lord Bishop of Landaff West, Benjamin, Esq. Review of his Life, prior to his Whitbread, Samuel, Esq. M.P. Wilmot, John Eardley, Esq. F. R. S. and F. A. S. Page 140, 562 183 417 429 581 43 ANNUAL BIOGRAPHY AND OBITUARY OF 1816. PART I. MEMOIRS OF CELEBRATED MEN, WHO HAVE DIED WITHIN THE YEARS 1815-1816. WILLIAM ROXBURGH, M.D. F.L.S. & S. A. LATE SUPERINTENDANT OF THE BOTANICAL GARDEN OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY, IN BENGAL. [With an account of his Works and Correspondence.] THE elements of botany are as old as the creation. The vegetable kingdom abounds with a rich luxuriance, and an immense variety of productions, which captivate at first sight by their charming hues, their graceful foliage, and their appropriate structure. Nor is their utility less conspicuous than their beauty. Our gardens and cultivated fields, exhibit such select and improved specimens, as are necessary either to our comfort or subsistence; while we occasionally have recourse to their native woods, forests, fields, and mountains, for such wild and uneducated plants, as may contribute to the advancement of arts and manufactures; objects, essentially connected with the spread of commerce, and the intercourse of civilized nations. Man, therefore, has always been prompted by the powerful motives of interest and curiosity, to examine subjects with which his welfare, his prosperity, and even his existence, are so intimately connected. And yet this branch of human knowledge, can hardly be said to have attained the dignity of a science among the ancients. The moderns alone, may fairly lay claim to this honour; and that too, at a very recent period. The travels of the indefatigable Tournefort; the writings of his contemporary Ray; and even the unlearned labours of the Herballists, excited public curiosity and attention; but it was reserved for the botanist of Upsal, to produce a new and improved theory, to simplify by classification, illustrate by approximation; and to give certainty and precision to an art, hitherto nearly conjectural. Since that period, his disciples have traversed both hemispheres, in search of knowledge. The voice of science has extended between the tropics; it has been heard amidst the fervid heats of the equator; and resounded among the dreary regions of the polar circle. British India in particular has proved fertile in resources. Her gums, her drugs, her spices, and her dyes, have been collected of late with indefatigable care and scientific attention. Men, replete with zeal, and fraught with knowledge, like the subject of the present memoir, have penetrated the inmost recesses of nature, and interrogated her concerning her own productions. The finest specimens, most of them entirely new, and many of them highly valuable, have accordingly been collected, analyzed, exhibited, and commented upon. A great commercial few paltry company too, known only in Europe by a warehouses in Leadenhall Street, but exercising a sovereign power over near forty millions of subjects in the east, has become the patron of botany. Rising above the sordid details of trade; and relinquishing for a moment all the splendid dreams of conquest, the banks of the Ganges have at length beheld one establishment at least, utterly unconnected with either avarice or ambition. William Roxburgh a native of Ayrshire, in North Britain, was born at Underwood, near Lymington, in the parish of Craigie, on the 29th June, 1759. His early years passed away rapidly, amidst the romantic scenery that seems to have inspired the Muse of his countryman Robert Burns, and conferred both grace and energy on the poetical labours of an humble ploughman. The happy facility, and comparative ease, with which knowledge is obtained in Scotland, soon pointed out a learned profession as an object of laudable ambition to his parents. He was, therefore, educated expressly for this object; and to be a physician was the aim and end, at which all his hopes, and all his endeavours pointed. Accordingly, notwithstanding his family was not in affluent circumstances, he was sent to Edinburgh, in order to complete his studies, after having exhausted all the learning of one of those respectable primary schools established by law in every parish throughout the northern parts of this island. While in that capital, he attended the classes of the various professors in the University; and paid particular attention to medicine, which is there always combined with pharmacy and surgery. At this period of his life, he obtained the friendship and patronage of Dr. Boswell, a physician of some eminence, doubtless on account of his good conduct and character; and if we are not misinformed, he resided for a time in his house. Certain it is, that he afterwards became his correspondent, and was at length allied by marriage to his family. Such is the rapidity, with which medical men are produced on the shores of the Frith of Forth, that we find Dr. Roxburgh acting as a surgeon, or rather, perhaps, a surgeon's mate, on board of an East Indiaman, at the early age of seventeen or eighteen. Certain it is, that he had made two voyages to the East by the time he was twenty-one; for about that period, he accepted of an offer to settle at Madras. On this occasion, a prospect was suddenly opened to him of high medical preferment; and had he been actuated by motives of interest alone, long before his death, he might have attained the rank of physician-general at that Presidency. But his mind had been always occupied with a particular pursuit, the gratification of which was the object nearest his heart. About the time here alluded to, the reputation of Linnæus was in full bloom. His new system, to many acknowledged advantages, superadded that of novelty; and the mind of the subject of this memoir, had been deeply imbued both with its excellence and utility while a student at the college of Edinburgh. He was accordingly ambitious of treading in the footsteps of the illustrious Swede; and sighed for an opportunity of distinguishing himself in the same He had for some time carried on a correspondence with his countryman Sir John Pringle, then president of the Royal Society, to whom he occasionally transmitted various curious seeds, and other productions of Asia *. As the constant complaint in Europe then was, that in consequence of the length of the passage, and the exposure to heat and moisture, these were generally found incapable of vegetation on their arrival, he contrived a new vehicle for their transmission. Instead of employing paper and wooden packages, which are pervious to every variation of climate, he contrived to suspend the finer specimens in a mucilage of gum-arabic, which hardened around, and preserved them in the greatest perfection. The Mimosas in particular, were brought to England career. * About this period also, he first observed the aërial tides, or the two diurnal risings and fallings of the barometer in low latitudes, the existence of which has been amply confirmed by other meteorologists. His observations on this subject were communicated to the Royal Society, and were afterwards printed in the Philosophical Transactions. It may appear surprising, that the distinction of F. R. S. was not appended to his name; but the truth is, that his friend Sir John Pringle about this period retired to his native country (Roxburghshire) in disgust, and died there a short time afterwards.-ED. |