SIR WILLIAM JACKSON HOOKER,

K.H., LL.D. AND D.C.L. OXON., F.R.S., L.S., AND A.S., etc.,

DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL GARDENS, KEW.

IN the long career of this distinguished naturalist we have a bright example of untiring energy in the pursuit of a comparatively abstruse science, which he has of late made eminently conducive to the instruction and delight of the people. Commencing with an ardent desire for travel, followed by the occupation of an academic chair, in which the lecturer took care to enliven the labours of his class-room with genial field-work, Sir W. J. Hooker ever kept the element of usefulness in view. When, therefore, a vacancy occurred in the Directorship of our Royal Botanic Gardens, no better appointment could have been made than that which secured his services to the country. Here he has not only continued to labour unceasingly as a scientific botanist, but has devoted himself to collecting and utilizing the botanical products of foreign climes for national purposes; and the result-as we shall presently showhas proved of no small importance to Britain and her numerous dependencies.

William Jackson Hooker was born in Norwich, on the 6th of July, 1785, in which city he received his education. His family was originally of Exeter, and boasts a kindred descent with the learned author of Ecclesiastical Polity.' Early in life he inherited an ample competency, and having imbibed a taste for natural history, especially Botany, which was warmly encouraged by Sir James Smith and his future father-in-law, Mr. Dawson Turner, Mr. Hooker, in 1809, at the suggestion of Sir Joseph Banks, undertook a voyage with the view of exploring the natural productions of Iceland. He made ample collections of specimens and drawings, but, unfortunately, they were lost soon after his embarkation

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for England, through the destruction of the ship by fire. Happily, the life of the young botanist was spared; and he has given us an interesting reminiscence of his adventures in his first contribution to literature, Recollections of a Tour in Iceland.' As early as 1812, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, and accepted in 1820 the Chair of Regius Professor of Botany in the University of Glasgow. "As a Professor," wrote a contemporary botanist nearly forty years ago, "Dr. Hooker is deservedly popular. His extraordinary zeal and the singular amenity of his manners are sure to gain the regard of his pupils, whom he annually gratifies by an excursion into the Highlands of Scotland. The same qualities have also won him the most extensive botanical correspondence and probably the largest herbarium in Britain."

In 1841, Sir W. J. Hooker, having received the honour of Knighthood six years previously, in consideration of his botanical attainments, entered upon the important charge of Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew. The limited portion then open to visitors was so rich in the vegetable productions of the southern hemisphere, derived from the exploring voyages of Sir Joseph Banks, Captain Flinders, Mr. Robert Brown, Mr. Allan Cunningham and others, that an opinion began to be loudly expressed throughout the country that the Gardens should be placed upon an improved footing, and rendered available as a national scientific establishment. A Commission was appointed to investigate the subject; a return was made to the House of Commons in the shape of a report from Dr. Lindley, who surveyed the Gardens in conjunction with two eminent practical gardeners, and before twelve months had expired, the suggestions of the report were carried into execution.

One of the first acts of Sir W. J. Hooker in his new appointment, was to admit the public daily to the Gardens. Not only the grounds, but the plant-houses were thrown open; and while the grounds have been enlarged, through the kind consideration of her Majesty, to upwards of three hundred acres, the plant-houses have been increased in dimensions and grandeur, through the wise liberality of the House of Commons, to an extent unequalled in any country of the world. To show how largely the public participate in the enjoyment arising from this grand development of Sir W. J. Hooker's views, we may refer for a moment to the statistics of the number of visitors. During the twenty years from

1841 to 1860, the annual number gradually rose from 9174 to 425,314, until in 1862, the year of the second International Exhibition, it exceeded half a million. On Sunday, August the 24th of that year, there were no fewer than 18,120 visitors, nearly as many as entered the Gardens during the whole first two years of Sir W. J. Hooker's Directorship.

But the Royal Gardens of Kew must be viewed as an establishment of scientific renown, and not a mere resort for recreation. Previous to 1841 England had no national Botanic establishment like those of Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Göttingen, St. Petersburg, Copenhagen, and Stockholm. The Kew establishment now surpasses all these in efficiency and importance. It comprises upwards of thirty Plant-houses (besides extensive heated Pits and Frames), including the great Palm-stove and a Temperate Conservatory of still larger dimensions, three important Museums, and a Library and Herbarium. Here horticulture and scientific botany are vigorously encouraged, promoting the useful arts which depend on vegetable produce, and supplying information to botanists, merchants, and manufacturers; here, also, plant-collectors and gardeners are trained for home, colonial, and foreign service; and here are exhibited useful and ornamental plants from all lands and climates, together with their products, whether as food, drugs, dyes, timbers, textiles, or cabinet-work. Such is the happy admixture of the scientific, ornamental, and useful elements at Kew, that while foreman a is busy tending his forty-four thousand bedding-out plants for the ornamental borders, and foreman b is trimming the trees, lawns, walks, clumps, and flowering-shrubs, foremen c, d, e, f, g, and h are looking after the conservatories of stove-plants, orchids, ferns, pitcher-plants, water-lilies, palms, spices, the arboretum of hardy trees and shrubs, and the nurseries for rearing trees and shrubs for the gardens and metropolitan parks; the objects in the museums are also being carefully arranged and labelled by well-informed Curators, and learned men of all countries are consulting books and dried specimens in the Library and Herbarium.

The Museum buildings, devoted to the illustration of Economic Botany, are no fewer than three in number. It was in 1847 that the formation of this portion of the establishment suggested itself to the fertile mind of Sir W. J. Hooker. With his usual caution, the Director first sought permission to occupy a single but large apart

ment (in a building originally used as a royal fruit-store) with a display of some contributions from himself and friends, intimating that they might prove useful to the merchant, the manufacturer, the timber-dealer, the cabinet-maker, or the druggist. So humble a request could not but be cheerfully granted. The instructive aspect of the room led to the occupation of the entire house with one hundred large cases: the overflowing of the house led to the construction of a new edifice of three extensive floors, with another hundred much larger cases; and now the spacious Orangery, erected a century ago by Sir William Chambers for Augusta, then Princess Dowager of Wales, is being filled with that most wonderful collection of Colonial Woods lately assembled in the International Exhibition.

To complete the scientific usefulness of the establishment a Botanical Library and Herbarium were needed; and Sir W. J. Hooker commenced the formation of these by opening his own valuable collections to scientific botanists, on condition of their being accommodated with a suitable building. A mansion at the entrance to the gardens, formerly occupied by the King of Hanover, was granted for this purpose; and now, other collections having been added as gifts, it contains the most extensive and practically useful Library and Herbarium ever formed, and includes more than 30,000 original drawings of plants, mainly collected and presented by the Director, and many of them executed by himself. A large proportion of the most valuable botanical works published in Europe during the last ten years have been prepared within its walls, authors both of this and foreign countries having frequently taken up their abode at Kew for weeks, and even months, for the purpose. Another important feature in the scientific department of the Kew establishment is the service rendered to horticulture and botany in the several exploring missions that have been carried out of late years. Valuable assistance has also been given towards the foundation and maintenance of similar less ambitious establishments both at home and abroad. Cinchonas, for example (trees yielding quinine), have been reared in great numbers at Kew, and exported to the botanic gardens and pharmaceutical plantations of India, Ceylon, and the West Indies.

All this involves an enormous amount of correspondence, nice discrimination of materials, and a wise economical distribution of

time and labour. Sir W. J. Hooker, in his seventy-ninth year, is still vigorously engaged in the management of Kew Gardens, aided by his son Dr. Joseph Hooker, as Assistant-Director, himself one of the most accomplished, and probably the most philosophic, botanists of our time.

Among the works produced by Sir W. J. Hooker up to this time may be mentioned

"Tour in Iceland' (two editions).

'Descriptions of the Cryptogamic Plants in Humboldt's Gen. et Sp. Plant. Orbis Novi.'

'Muscologia Britannica' (1 vol.), in conjunction with Dr. Taylor (two editions).

New edition of 'Curtis' Flora Londinensis' and three volumes of Supplement, in folio.

'British Jungermanniæ.' 1 vol. large 4to.

'Musci Exotici.' 2 vols. 4to and 8vo.

'Flora Scotica." 1 vol. 8vo.

'British Flora' (1 vol. 8vo), which has gone through eight editions, the last two in conjunction with Dr. Arnott.

Vol. V. of Sir James Smith's English Flora' (or Vol. II. of 'British Flora'), comprising the Cryptogamiæ of Great Britain. 'Exotic Flora.' 2 vols. large 8vo, the plates in 4to.

'Icones Filicum' (2 vols. folio), in conjunction with Dr. Greville. 'Botanical Miscellany.' 3 vols. large 8vo.

'Journal of Botany,' being a second series of the preceding; a third series, under the title of 'London Journal of Botany;' and a fourth series, entitled 'Kew Garden Miscellany.' 20 vols. 8vo.

'Botanical Magazine,' of which the first fifty-three volumes were conducted by Mr. Curtis, Dr. Sims, and Mr. Gawler; the rest, vol. liv. to lxxxix. (of the present year, 1863), by Sir W. J. Hooker. This is probably the oldest periodical scientific work in existence, having been commenced by Mr. Curtis in 1793 and continued uninterruptedly to the present time, and comprises upwards of 5400 figures executed by Sydenham Edwards, John Curtis, and (by far the greater number and the best) Mr. Fitch.

Companion to the Botanical Magazine.' 2 vols. 8vo.

'Flora Boreali-Americana.' 2 vols. large 4to.

The botanical portion of Murray's Encyclopædia of Geography.' 8vo.

'Icones Plantarum Rariorum,' with 1000 plates, accompanied