300 HILLS : E. G. VARENNE, OF KELVEDON, BOTANIST.
That reproduced herein (fig. 1) is from a print in the possession
of Dr. Turner, his successor in the practice. It represents
him as a solidly-built serious-looking man, with profuse curly
hair and beard, and shaven upper lip—altogether a characteristic
figure of the period. Another photograph, preserved in the
Library of the Essex Field Club, represents him full-length,
standing erect, full-faced, in a singularly stiff and ungainly atti-
tude, near a chair, upon which is his top-hat of bye-gone pattern,
and against which leans his riding-crop. The trousers he wears
are of the now unfashionable, horsey, "concertina" type. In
regard to features, this portrait bears much resemblance to that
reproduced herein. Altogether it presents so much the appearance
of a caricature (even for the period) as to be laughable. Anyone
who sought to reproduce it would act unkindly towards the
memory of a good man ! Yet another portrait has been repro-
duced already in these pages by Prof. Boulger.7 It has every
appearance of having been taken much later in life than any
of the foregoing, for it represents Varenne as an older man with
a grey beard. He has also a grey moustache, which is not shown
in the earlier portraits.
After Varenne's death, the botanical vasculum he was accus-
tomed to use was given by his widow to Miss E. Vaughan, of
Rayne, who gave it to me, and I have presented it to the Museum
of the Essex Field Club, in which it now rests very appropriately.
Varenne's collections of lichens, mosses, etc., were purchased
from his widow, by his friend the late Mr. E. D. Marquand, as
stated by Prof. Boulger, and they are now in the Museum of
the Essex Field Club at Stratford.
[I desire to express my grateful thanks to Mr. Miller Christy,
F.L.S., to whose careful research and kind help this article is
really, due ; also to my friends whose names are mentioned
above, and to Mrs. Barratt, of "The Poplars," Kelvedon, for
their ready assistance.—A. H.]
7 Essex Nat., v., pl. ii. (facing p. 43).