Volume 1 > Half-Volume 2

451
but the young man, who now required a wider field
of study, obtained soon afterwards a situation in the
establishment of Messrs. Dickson of Broughton, near
Edinburgh, where he had the care of the finest col-
lection of plants in Scotland. In 1819 David Don
went to London, and being recommended to Mr.
Lambert, who at that time had a large collection of
plants, he was by that gentleman established entirely
in his own house as curator and librarian. In 1822
the situation of librarian to the Linn�an Society
became vacant, and to this congenial office, notwith-
standing his youth, Don was appointed. Already,
indeed, he had acquired high distinction among the
students in botanical science, while this appointment
afforded the best opportunities for the extension and
improvement of his knowledge. In 1836 he was
appointed professor of botany in King's College,
London, in consequence of the death of Professor
Burnett; and the duties of this office he continued to
discharge with credit to the end of his life. That
valuable life, however, was unexpectedly and pre-
maturely terminated. Although of a robust and
strong constitution, a malignant tumour appeared on
his lip, and although it was removed, it soon re-
appeared in an aggravated form, and ended his days
on the 8th of December, 1840, when he had only
reached the forty-first year of his age.
The reputation of David Don as a distinguished
botanist was established in early life, not only among
his friends, but the world at large, by his publications
on the science which he so enthusiastically cultivated.
One of the first of these was a description of several
species of plants which were either entirely new, or
confined to a few localities, and had been collected
in Scotland by his father and other persons. This
article was published in the third volume of the
Memoirs of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh.
Soon after he published, in the thirteenth volume of
the Linn�an Society, A Monograph of the Genus
Saxifraga, by which his reputation as a sound ac-
curate botanist was firmly established. His appoint-
ment of librarian to the Linn�an Society having
directed his studies to the Indian collection of plants
contained in its museum, he published descriptions
of several species of plants that grew in Nepaul,
under the title of Prodromus Flor� Nepalensis.
Indeed, after his appointment as librarian, almost
every volume of the Linn�an Society's Transactions
was enriched by him with papers on various depart-
ments of systematic botany. His numerous scientific
contributions from early youth to the close of his life
are to be found in every volume of the Transactions
of the Linn�an Society from vol. 13 to vol. 18; in the
Memoirs of the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, vols.
3 and 5; and in the Edinburgh New Philosophical
Fournal, vols. 2 and 19. These are chiefly descrip-
tive of various new genera and species, and on
various points in the physiology of plants, while the
scientific character of their author has been thus
briefly summed up by his biographer, whose account
we have followed: "His numerous papers . . . are
sufficient proof of his industry, and they have a real
value. Don's knowledge of plants was most exten-
sive, and his appreciation of species ready and exact.
He was not, however, fully alive to the importance
of studying plants in their morphological relations,
and many of his papers are open to criticism on this
ground."
DONALDSON", JOHN. This wayward artist and
author, who wanted nothing but common sense to
have attained very high distinction, was born at
Edinburgh in 1737. His father, a glover in rather
humble circumstances, was a man addicted to meta-
physical theories and reveries, which did not, how-
ever, interfere with his daily business; but in the
son this tendency finally predominated to the exclu-
sion of every other care.
Even while a child, John Donaldson exhibited an
extraordinary aptitude for drawing; he copied every
object with chalk upon his father's cutting-board,
and when he was only twelve or thirteen years of
age, he had attained such proficiency in executing
miniature portraits in Indian ink, as to assist in sup-
porting his parents. He was likewise so admirable
a copyist in imitating ancient engravings with his
pen, that these imitations were often mistaken even
by the skilful for originals.
After he had thus spent some years in Edinburgh, he
went to London, and for some time painted portraits
in miniature with great success. But besides these,
he betook himself to historical drawing, in which he
was still more successful, and one of his productions
in this department (the tent of Darius) gained the
prize given by the Society of Arts. He also painted
two subjects in enamel, the one on the death of Dido,
and the other from the story of Hero and Leander,
both of which obtained prizes from the same society.
He was now regarded as an artist of high promise,
and his foot was planted upon the ladder which
would have raised him to fame and fortune, when
the spirit of the moral dreamer which had been
growing within him, superseded the inspiration of
the artist. He had begun to think that the taste,
intellectual pursuits, government, morals, and religion
of mankind were all wrong�and that, as the neces-
sary consequence of his making such a discovery, he
was the person destined to set them all right. His
father had been able, while discussing the most ab-
struse metaphysical subjects, to carry on his work
without interruption, and cut out gloves upon the
board; but John, an exaggeration of his father, was
so wholly possessed by his theories as to become in
the ordinary affairs of life as helpless as a child. An
indifference, nay, a positive aversion to the art which
he had cultivated so carefully and successfully, had
now obtained complete possession, which he mani-
fested by startling indications: he maintained that
Sir Joshua Reynolds must be a very dull fellow to
devote his life to the study of lines and tints; and
on one occasion, when the carriage of Lord North
waited at his door, his lordship was sent away with
a "not at home," because the artist was not in a
humour to paint. Donaldson also cultivated his
conversational powers, which were chiefly distin-
guished by smart epigram and sarcasm�and think-
ing perhaps that these would be available instruments
in the regeneration of human opinion, he would start
from his easel to his writing-desk, and finish an epi-
gram, or secure a flying thought, though some person
of rank should at the time be sitting for his portrait.
Of course his improvement as a painter was stopped,
and his friends and patrons alienated. But neither
by these instances, nor by the fact that younger and
inferior artists were now obtaining the precedence,
would he submit to be warned�these were merely
proofs that the whole world was in the wrong, and
combined in a conspiracy against the man who could
reform them. Thus he went on until he had neither
business to cultivate nor customers to resort to him.
In the meantime, although he had abandoned paint-
ing, he was not idle, as the masses of manuscript he
had written attested; but their subjects were too
outr� or undigested to be fit for publication. The
only works he , published, notwithstanding all this
mass of labour, were an Essay on the Elements of
Beauty, and a volume of poems. He is supposed also
to have been the author of an anonymous pamphlet