on giving no book to the world which he considered unworthy of being read, and he was as careful about the external appearance of a book as about its contents. As editor of 'Temple Bar' he carefully selected works of fiction for publication in monthly instalments. He was an assiduous purveyor to the circulating libraries of novels in three volumes, and the most popular were afterwards included in his six-shilling series of 'Favourite Novels.' The more noteworthy novelists whom he introduced to the public are Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Henry Wood, Miss Rhoda Broughton, Miss Florence Montgomery, Hawley Smart, Miss 'Marie Corelli,' Mr. W. E. Norris, Mr. 'Maarten Maartens,' and Mrs. Riddell. His eminence as a publisher was attained at the cost of great personal labour and to the injury of his health, which was always delicate. During fifteen years he passed each winter at Tenby in South Wales. His last winter was spent at Weston-super-Mare. He returned to his house at Upton in the spring in very feeble health, and in the night of 29 May 1895 an attack of angina pectoris ended his life. He was buried in the churchyard of St. Lawrence, Upton.
Bentley married, 16 June 1853, Anne, daughter of William Williams of Aberystwyth. His only son Richard, born in May 1854, after conducting the business for five years, dissolved the firm in 1898, making over the stock and assets to Messrs. Macmillan & Company.
Bentley was a member of the Stationers' Company and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He was very conservative in his tastes and his feelings, his firm being the last to continue the custom, dating from the end of the seventeenth century, of an annual trade dinner, to which the principal booksellers were invited, and at which new and standard publications were offered for sale after the cloth was removed. The place was sometimes the Albion Tavern, sometimes the hall of the Stationers' Company, and, in later years it was the Hôtel Métropole. He was intimately versed in the literature of France as well as in that of his own country, and, as editor of 'Temple Bar,' he made it the vehicle for conveying to the English public much interesting information about the best French writers. He left behind him twenty-one manuscript volumes of literary journals, extending over forty-six years, which are now in the possession of his son Richard. Bentley's portrait in middle age was etched by Lowenstam, and in later life engraved by Mr. Roffe. Mr. 'Maarten Maartens,' the Dutch writer of English fiction, whom Bentley introduced to the English reading public, thus wrote after his death: ' "I am a publisher," Bentley would say jokingly, "but I am also a lover of literature." He might have added, "and of literary men"' (Leaves from the Past, p. 119).
[Academy, 1895, i. 483; Athenæum, 1895, i. 739; Le Livre, October 1885, pp. 292-8; The Bookman, July 1895; Times, 31 May 1895; private information.]
BENTLEY, ROBERT (1821–1893), botanist, was born at Hitchin, Hertfordshire, on 25 March 1821. He was apprenticed to William Maddock, a druggist at Tunbridge Wells, where he began the study of botany. He then became assistant to Messrs. Bell & Co. in Oxford Street, and, on the establishment of the Pharmaceutical Society, became one of the first associates. He attended the lectures of Anthony Todd Thomson [q. v.] on botany and materia medica, and gained the first prize for botany awarded by the new society. Having matriculated in the university of London, Bentley entered the King's College medical school, and qualified as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1847. He became a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1849. He soon after was appointed lecturer on botany at the London Hospital medical school, and then professor of botany at the London Institution and at King's College, and professor of botany and materia medica to the Pharmaceutical Society. For ten years he edited the 'Pharmaceutical Journal,' in which all the original papers with which he is credited in the Royal Society's 'Catalogue of Scientific Papers' (i. 282, ix. 192) were published. He acted as president of the Pharmaceutical Conference at Nottingham in 1866 and at Dundee in 1867, and was for many years chairman of the garden committee of the Royal Botanical Society, giving an annual course of lectures to the fellows. On his resignation of his professorship to the Pharmaceutical Society in 1887, Bentley was elected emeritus professor. He also took an active part in the affairs of the English Church Union, serving for some years on the council. Bentley died at his home in Warwick Road, Kensington, on 24 Dec. 1893, and was buried at Kensal Green cemetery. In 1885 he edited the 'British Pharmacopoeia' jointly with Professors Redwood and Attfield. His chief works are: 1. 'Manual of Botany,' 1861, 8vo; 4th edit. 1881; a text-book of considerable pharmaceutical value, which has since been rewritten by the author's successor. Professor Green. 2. 'Characters, Properties, and Uses of Eucalyptus,'
