Taylor, and was born on the 21st December 1773. He was educated at the grammar school of his native town, where he had as contemporaries, among others less known to fame, Joseph Hume and James Mill. In 1787 he entered Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he soon distinguished himself. Two years afterwards, his father quitting Montrose for Edinburgh, Brown removed to the university of that city, and there continued his studies for several years, but without taking a degree, though destined for the medical profession. In 1791 his father died, and in 1816 his mother ; both are interred in the Cauongate churchyard, in the burying ground belonging to Bishop Keith. It was abjut 1790 that young Brown s taste for botany attracted the attention of Dr Walker, then professor of natural history in the university. His first contribution to the science of which he was destined to be so eminent a cultivator was made on the 26th June 1792, in the shape of a paper on the plants of Forfarshire, read before the Natural History Society ; the MS. is still contained in the archives of the Royal Physical Society (Journal of Botany, 1871, p. 321). During his student days he also discovered many plants new to Scotland, which were communicated to Withering
for his Arrangement of British Plants.In 1795 he obtained a commission in the Forfarshire regiment of Fencible Infantry as " ensign and assistant surgeon," and while serving in the North of Ireland steadily pursued his botanical studies, and had the advantage of the companionship of Capt. Dugald Carmichael of Appin, afterwards well known as an investigator of the lower orders of plants. Having occasion to pass several months of 1798 and of subsequent years in London, he studied in the library and museum of Sir Joseph Banks, P.E.S., whose acquaintance he had been fortunate enough to make by the discovery of a rare moss, Glyphomitrion Daviesii. The result of this friendly intercourse was that he was recalled from Ireland, and in the summer of 1801 quitted his not altogether congenial medico-military pursuits, to take the more agreeable post of naturalist to the expedition fitted out under Capt. Flinders for the survey of the then almost unknown coasts of New Holland. Ferdinand Bauer, after wards familiarly associated with Brown in his botanical discoveries, was draughtsman ; Win. Westall was landscape painter ; and among the midshipmen was one afterwards destined to rise into fame as Sir John Franklin. The narrative of that expedition is part of the biography of its botanist. In 180.5 the expedition returned to England, having obtained, among other acquisitions, nearly 4000 species of dried plants, many of which were new. Brown was almost immediately appointed librarian of the Linnean Society, of which learned body he had been an associate since 1798, and to the presidency of which he afterwards attained. In this position, though one of no great emolument, he had abundant opportunities of pursuing his studies : but it was not until 1810 that the first volume of his great work, in Latin, the Prodromus Flonx Novce Hollandice et Insulae Van Diemen, appeared. It at once revolutionized systematic botany, not only by the great number of new species it described, but also by the novel views of the general affinities of plants which were promulgated in its pages. Almost immediately it took the rank it has ever since maintained as one of the canons of botanical science. Humboldt soon after its publication dedicated his well-known work on the plants of the New World to Brown (Roberto JBrownio, Britanniarum gloria atque ornatnento, totam Botanices Scientiam ingenio miriftco complectanti] , and long after, in his Kosmos, styled him facile princeps botanicorum. The Prodromus is now rare in its original edition, the author having suppressed it, hurt at the Edinburgh Review having fallen foul of its Latmity ; it is chiefly known through a German reprint. With the exception of a supplement published in 1830, no more of the work appeared. In 1810 Brown became librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, who on his death in 1820 be queathed to him the use and enjoyment of his library and collections for life. In 1827 an arrangement was made by which these were transferred to the British Museum, with Brown s consent and in accordance with Sir Joseph s will. Brown now became keeper of this new botanical department, an office which he held until his death thirty years after wards. Soon after Banks s decease he resigned the librarian- ship of the Linnean Society, and in 1849 became president, in which office he continued until 1853. His subsequent life was occupied with numerous brilliant discoveries and researches in vegetable anatomy, physiology, and classifica tion ; these are familiar to every student, and may be read in any botanical text-book. Long before his death they secured his fame as the first botanist of the day. Honours flowed thickly in upon him. In addition to being a fellow of the Royal Society he received its Copley Medal in 1839. In 1833 he was elected one of the five foreign associates of the Institute of France, the other competitors, nearly all of whom afterwards attained the same honour, being Bessell, Von Buch, Faraday, Herschel, Jacobi, Meckel, Mitscherlich, (Ersted, and Plana. He was also a mem ber of nearly all the learned societies and academies of this and other countries, D.C.L. of Oxford, LL.D. of Edinburgh, and knight of numerous orders, among others of the Order "pour le M6rite" of Prussia. In the " Aca- demia Caesarea Naturae Curiosorum" he sat under the cognomen of Ray.
On the 10th June 1858 he died in the 85th year of his age, in his house in Soho Square, bequeathed to him by Sir Jos. Banks. His place in botanical science has long been fixed ; it is not necessary now to discuss it. His works are all standards, being distinguished by their thoroughness and conscientious accuracy, and displaying powers at once of minute detail and of broad generalization, qualities rarely combined. Indeed, so careful was he in preparing his discoveries for the press that he directed in his will that, should any of his writings be republished, they should be printed verbatim et literatim. In private life he was exceedingly modest, and he shrank from notoriety of every kind. Sensationalism and self-seeking he despised ; fame came to him unsought. His reserved manner to those not intimately acquainted with him could never make him universally popular; but few will deny his warm heartedness to his friends, the singleness of his purpose, and the purity of his life. Those who knew him in his most intimate relations bear witness that in mind he was simple, truthful, and upright, and that he was wise and faithful in council.
In 1825-34 Dr Brown s works up to that date were collected and published in four divisions by Nees von Esenbeck, in German, under the title of Vermischte botanische Schriften (Leipsic and Nur emberg). In 1866 the Ray Society reprinted, under the editorship of his friend and successor in the keepership of the Botanical De partment of the British Museum, Mr J. J. Bonnet, his complete writings, the Prodromus alone excepted. In these Miscellaneous Works (2 vols., with atlas of plates), the history of his discoveries can be best followed. No special biography of him is ever likely to appear, as his career contained few of the elements essential to a con tinuous narrative of general interest. In the necrologies of the socie ties and academies which numbered him among their members, there will, however, be found sketches of his life more or less complete.
at Haddington on the 23d February 1817, and died 26th September 1856. He was the son of Dr Samuel Brown, the founder of itinerating libraries, and grandson of the author of the Self-Interpreting Bible. In 1832 he entered the university of Edinburgh, and almost from the first devoted himself with passionate enthusiasm to the study
of chemistry. The ultimate problems of the science spe-
