160 ESSEX WORTHIES.
sible man to look after his farm, he regularly attended Colchester
Market on the Saturdays and sold his own corn. It was at these
weekly visits that he frequently called at my father's antiquarian shop,
and an acquaintance was formed that led to my coming in contact
with Mr. Brown, when I was very young. As Fred Wagstaff was
sent by his uncle to the Quakers' School at Beverley Lodge and I
went at the same time to the Colchester Grammar School near by, we
often saw each other, and together went out collecting land and fresh-
water shells, which we named by means of Mr. Brown's books and
his guidance. Well do I remember often and often walking over to
the old farmhouse at Stanway to see the fossils, shells, and rock
collections, to learn the use of the microscope, to walk round the
farm with old Mr. Brown, and to see such sights as only a naturalist
could point out. We used to fish for Infusoria and other lowly forms
of life in the ponds, and proudly did I carry for him cans of weeds
and water. When indoors it was a great pleasure to be introduced
to the fresh-water hydra, the water-flea, and smaller living creatures
which John Brown delighted to display under his microscope. At
other times I saw learned men at his house Professor (now Sir
Richard) Owen, who spoke so kindly ; Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins,
who kindled our wondering spirits by showing us his drawings of
the extinct animals of the old world, models of which he was about
to put up in the Crystal Palace grounds. Professor Henslow would
tell of some experiment on living plants or give an account of the
museums he was endeavouring to fill at Cambridge and Ipswich, and
anon John Brown would point with evident triumph to the tusk of
a mammoth he had unearthed at Copford, not far from his own
home.
As I grew older I learned to do useful work for my old friend,
and was sent out to search for some special shell required by him,
or was taught to turn over a heap of stones to find a particular fossil
to be added to his collection. As time wore on John Brown's eye-
sight failed, and then his nephew and I used to read to him. The
fear of corning blindness was a sore trouble to him, but happily
it was not realised; he went to London and had the cataract removed,
so that by means of glasses he could then read. He always lamented
his lack of thorough early education and by all means in his power
he tried during his long life of eighty years to improve himself and
overcome this drawback. There is a tradition that he commenced
studying Greek at the age of seventy, but the truth is that when
he was over seventy years old he tried to learn French, and he