he comments "Poor thing! I must call a plant after her—Ruggia would sound well." He had indeed a love of all living things. Writing to Mrs Gray on the death of her favourite dog, he tells how he felt so ashamed of being so deeply moved when in South Africa by the death of his pet ostrich, that he foreswore any similar entanglement, and kept his vow ever since. Of serious griefs he had many; the death of several beloved brothers and sisters who predeceased him, would have been well nigh intolerable to him but for the profound religious feeling which sustained and helped him throughout life, and which robbed death of all its terrors.
I cannot do better than conclude with some words in which Asa Gray summed up Harvey's work and character shortly after his decease[118]: "He was a keen observer and a capital describer. He investigated accurately, worked easily and readily with microscope, pencil, and pen, wrote perspicuously, and where the subject permitted, with captivating grace; affording, in his lighter productions, mere glimpses of the warm and poetical imagination, delicate humour, refined feeling, and sincere goodness which were charmingly revealed in intimate intercourse and correspondence, and which won the admiration and the love of all who knew him well. Handsome in person, gentle and fascinating in manners, genial and warm-hearted but of very retiring disposition, simple in his tastes and unaffectedly devout, it is not surprising that he attracted friends wherever he went, so that his death will be sensibly felt on every continent and in the islands of the sea."
FOOTNOTES:
[107] Memoir of W. H. Harvey, M.D., F.R.S., with selections from his journal and correspondence. London, 1869.
[108] An essay on the indigenous grasses of Ireland. 8vo. Dublin, 1808.
[109] Published as Vol. v., Part 1, of Smith's English Flora.
[110] Vol. xlii. p. 274, 1866.
[111] Vol. iv. p. 236, 1866.
[112] Flora Capensis, Vol. i. p. 8.
[113] The algae of Beechey's Voyage.