Having long determined that with the completion of his daughter's education, he would relinquish altogether the labour and anxiety of tuition, and having already contracted his plan as far as could be done by considerably diminishing the number of his pupils, he was induced to engage in some literary undertakings, by which his time and talents might be not only profitably, but pleasingly and usefully employed. At the solicitation of the late Editor of the Annual Review, he consented to conduct the department of Natural History. While he thus enjoyed the opportunity of seeing valuable and expensive works upon subjects relating to his favourite science, he gratified and instructed the public by his able analyses of them, and by his free and judicious remarks upon their merits or defects. He was not to be dazzled by the splendour which works in this engaging science are now made to assume, nor to be lead away by the authority of a name however great. He weighed well the intrinsic worth of whatever came before him; neither by fear nor affection was he induced to compliment the author, at the expence of the public; but wherever he de

tected ignorance he exposed it, wherever he discovered error he candidly pointed it out, and wherever he found science, learning and merit, he held them up to the esteem they deserved. He did, not while living, object to its being generally known that he was so employed, and all the criticisms he furnished to that useful work, are so creditable to his candour, his judgment and his taste, that, now being dead, his friend, than whom no one is more desirous of his fame, feels no hesitation in thus publicly announcing him as their author.

But the work in which he engaged about this time with the greatest satisfaction, and with unwearied diligence, was that truly na tional publication the Cyclopædia, carried on under the very able and laborious superintendance of his friend the Rev. Dr. Rees. For this valuable work he wrote the articles in Botany, from the beginning of the letter B. nearly to the end of C. with the exception however, of the greater part of those which relate to the physiology of plants. The ability displayed in these articles will be a lasting and an honourable testimony to his skill as a Botanist. It has been already observed that soon after his set

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tling at Leeds he formed a strong attachment to the study of natural history, and devoted to its pursuit as much time and attention as the important duties of his profession would allow.

Almost every branch of natural history he successfully investigated, and had his other necessary avocations, or his health in later years permitted, he would have communicated to the public some very interesting results of his inquiries. In all his investigations it was a leading principle with him to call no man master; to no system therefore, however high the reputation of its inventor, or however general its reception, was he blindly attached. He studied the works of nature for himself, and the clearness of his mind, and the correctness of his judgment, enabled him to detect some errors into which the greatest naturalists had fallen, and to select those striking marks which nature herself has imprinted upon her works, to guide and facilitate the student's researches, and to assist him in communicating his discoveries to others. classification which he had thus formed for himself, of the principal subjects of Natural History, but particularly of Quadrupeds, always

The

appeared to the writer of this narrative, as singularly just and elegant, and he regrets that neither his own memory, nor the papers of his late friend, will enable him to describe it in that accurate manner in which alone it should appear before the public, since it would undoubtedly be highly gratifying to the lovers of natural science. The author had himself intended to revise it, and to present it to the Linnæan Society, of which at its first formation he became a member. Of all the branches of Natural History Botany was that which Mr. Wood most zealously pursued, and the reasons are obvious: The objects to which this branch relate are easily attained by persons whose residence is generally fixed, and whose pecuniary resources are small; in almost every situation, they are to be found in number and variety, sufficient to excite and to reward investigation; their beauty and elegance are generally attractive; they solicit attention when every appearance of nature is gay, and disposes the mind to pleasing impressions; when least attractive they excite no feeling of disgust, and their examination, their removal, and their preservation offer not the slightest shock to humanity.

To this branch therefore Mr. Wood devoted his chief attention, and few men were better acquainted with the plants of his native country than he was, notwithstanding the confinement to one spot, during the greater part of the year, which his profession rendered necessary, and the limits which that profession also most commonly placed to his occasional excursions. For several years he had access to a large and curious collection of foreign plants, and this opportunity was not unimproved; extensive reading aided by his own observations, as far as this valuable collection allowed, and also by frequent intercourse with the friend to whom it belonged, a botanist of great and merited fame, enabled him to attain very considerable knowledge of the science in general. To rank however with a Jussieu, or a Willdenow, a Lamarck or a Smith, he did not aspire; an accurate knowledge of the physiology of plants is not to be learnt in the retirements of the closet of a divine,in a provincial town, nor can scientific botany in its utmost extent be attained within the necessarily contracted bounds of a dissenting minister's research. Among practical bo