than his own requirements demanded, an arrangement was made by which the Linnean Society moved into the vacant rooms, where it remained for a number of years. Brown subsequently became President of the Society (in 1849).
Robert Brown was deservedly acclaimed by his contemporaries as the first botanist of his age, and honours fell to his share even in his earlier years. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1811, and twenty-eight years afterwards was awarded the Copley Medal. He was approached in 1819 in connection with the Chair of Botany in Edinburgh, but decided not to sever his intimate connection with Sir Joseph Banks.
Abroad he was probably more widely known than in this country, for when on a visit to Prussia the King sent a special carriage to meet him, and decorated him with the Order Pour la Mérite. In England, on the other hand, though held in the highest esteem by his scientific confrères, he shared the obscurity that was the common lot of many of the savants of that age. He was, however, awarded a civil pension, although not without question on the part of certain members of the House of Commons.
He lived to a ripe age, passing away in the year 1858, the 85th of his age. To the last he retained his interest in his life work, and on June 3, a week before he died, he signed a certificate in favour of an Associate of the Linnean Society.
Robert Brown, as we have seen, penetrated more deeply than most of his contemporaries into the secrets of nature, and he enriched the science to which he devoted his long life by discoveries of fundamental importance. But he, no more than others, was able to anticipate, with all his insight, the recognition of the broader bonds of coherence which link up the plant kingdom as a whole. That was only made possible when the researches of Hofmeister, the great Tübingen Professor, had been made known to the world. But it is no reproach to his memory or to his reputation that he should have fallen into error when attempting to elucidate the critical stages in the life history of cryptogams. The historical interest attaching to his mistakes lies in their inevitableness at the time when he was actively working.
