* A BEIEF ]VIEMOIE OF
Lis third wife having been a daughter of that hoiise. The part of the inscription on
t h e tombstone which refers to Roxburgh is as follows:—
nere are deposited the remains of Doctor "William Roxburgh, of the
Honoxu-ablo East India Compaoy's Civil Service, who died at Edinburgh on
the ISth Febmary 1815, aged G4. Also those c.f Mary, his wife, daughter of
the late Ecbert Boswoll, Esquire, W,S., ^'ho died iu Londoa on the 18th
January lS5i) in her 85th year, ieiieath this stone ai-e also deposited the
remains of Mary, the eldest daughter of Doctor "William Rnsbiu'gh, and the
wife of Henry Stone, Esquia-e, who departed this life on the 30th January
1814, in the 30th year of hia age.
Dr. Roxburgh was three times married. Through the Idndness of j\[r. N. Bonliam-
Cartev, of the Bengal Civil Service, who is a lineal descendant of the Mrs. Stone nientioned
on the tombstone, I am enabled to give the under-noted family table which,
however, is unfortunately for the most part without dates:—
Marnagcs and Families of Br. W. Roxlur<jh.
Hm Bonié.
(Swiss or French; father perhaps
Governor of Penang. She was
one of three sisters. The other
two married Mr. Amos and
Barou Yon Streng.)
GhWd.
The above-named Miss Bonte
liad one child, Mary, wbo married
Henry Stone, B.C.S., and had four
children—
1. Richard (?), who died aged about
sis.
2. Mary (Lady Marjoribanks).
3. Amelia (Mrs. James Mac-
Ai-thm').
4. Sibella (Mrs. G. W. Normnn).
2lm HuUenmann.
(Gorman.)
Children.
I, killed by lightning in
Java.
2. Anne, married Robert M.
Tulloh, B.C s.
3. Robert, Indian Army.
4. Bruce, ditto.
5. Elizabeth, married F. Ourwcn-
Smith, B.C.S., and died 1891,
aged 92.
6. Sophia, married John W.
7. James, Indian Army, mairied
Miss Carnegie.
8. Henry (Royal Navy).
Miss Bo.vcc/1
(of the Auchinleoh family).
C/nldmi.
1. Sibella,
2. Mary Anne, ma
Tucker, B.C.S.
•3. "WiUiam, maixied A. E.
{Mi^s Bonvdl, the ihird Mrs. Koxburgh,
mia siiter ot Mrs. Egcrion
of Grcsford)
Estimated by the amount of elaborated botanical materials which he left behind him,
Boxbui'gh's life at the Calcutta Garden must have been one of continued hard work.
When he quitted India for the last time ia 1813, he left, under the charge of
Dr. Carey, not only the manuscripts of liis Rortus Bengalensis and of his Flora
Indica, but also no fewer than 2,533 life-sized coloured drawings of Indian plants,
with figures of excellent analyses of their flowers which had doubtless been made by
himself. The majority of these drawings are of plants described in his Flora, so that,
between his ovm descriptions and those figures, there is, in most cases, no room for
WILLIAJI BOXBURGH. ^
any doubt as to what Roxburgh's species arc. With the characteristic caution of his
nationality, Roxburgh had several copies mxdo o£ the manuscript of the Flora Indica.
One of these he took home with him, intending to occuj)y the remainder of his life
iu amendiug and passing it through the press. Another copy he left with his friend,
the Rcvd Dr. Carey, the celebrated Christian Missionary, who was himself an
ardent Botanist, and who had brought together, in the Garden of tho Mission House
at Serampore, a collection of living plants second only to that under Roxburgh's
charge at Sibpur. So competent a Botanist was Dr. Carey acknowledged to be, that
he was put by the Local Government in charge of the Botanic Garden when Roxburgh
was obliged to leave it; and be continued to held charge of it until roHoved by Dr.
Buchanan-Hamilton, who was nominated its Superintendeut by the Court of Dhectors iu
England. Dr. Roxburgh had not long left India before Dr. Carey passed the Ilorhis
Bengalmsis through the press, and thus securcd for his absent and sick friend priority for
many of his species. The Uortus Bengalensis consists of two parts, the fir.st being a list of
tho plants growing in the Garden when Roxburgh left it, the second a catalogue of plant.s
described by Dr. Roxburgh in his manuscript Flora Indica, but not yet introduced into
the Botanic Garden. The former list contains about three thousand* five hundred species,
of which no fewer than fifteen hundred and ton (including many new genera) had been first
described aud named by himself; the second hst contains four hundred and fifty-threo
species, mostly Roxburghian. As has already been stated, Roxburgh took a copy of his
manuscript Flora Indica home to Scotland with him, with the intention, in the light of
the most recent views of systematic Botanists in Europe, of improving and amending it
prior to publication; and (as he wrote to Dr. Carey) he hoped to have secured the assistance
of Robert Brown in this matter. His ill-health, and death so soon after his return homo,
prevented, however, his doing anything towards this object; and tho Flora remained in
manuscript and untouched for six years. In the year 1820, however, Doctors Carey and
Wallich undertook its publication. Dr. Wallicb, then Surgeon to the Danish Sc-ttlement
a t Serampore and a young Botani.st of much promise, had been appointfid Superintendent
of the Calcutta Garden at the end of Dr. Buchanan-Hamilton's short tenm-e of office;
and he had employed the early years of his Superintendentship in making extensive collections
in Nepal, and subsequently in the Straits of Slalacca aud in other parts of India
which had never come within the scope of Roxburgh's efforts. It was decidcd that
•descriptions of these collections of Wallich should be incorporated with Roxburgh's manuscript,
aud that the whole should be published under tlie joint supervision of Carey aud
"VVallich. The first volume of this work, covering the Roxburghian manuscript to the end
of Tetrandria, appeared in 1820, and that volume contained but few of "^^'allich's interpolations.
The second volume, which did not appear until four years later, contained,
however, a great many of them, and it did not quite finish the I'entandria of the Roxburghian
manuscripts. In fact, tho decision to include "Wallich's novelties ^vas the cause
of the failure of the whole projtct. For Wallich's capacities for collecting were so far
in excess of his leisure for description and classification that he had to abandon the idea
of carrying on his share of the work. The publication of the Carey and Wallich
edition of Roxburgh's Flora therefore ended prematurely with the second volume. Eight
.years having elapsed without anything having been done towards the completion of its
publication, its author's two sous, Captains Bruce and Jamea Roxburgh, neither of whom