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OBITUARY OF FREDERICK SCHEER. 269
which he had had in advancing a project or publication, it gave him
pain to see his name made public in connection with it.
Mr. Scheer was bom in the island of Riigen, where his father was
a clergyman ; and the first part of his life was spent in Russia in mer-
cantile pursuits. But when still a young man, he took up his resi-
dence in England as a City merchant, and for many years lived on
Kew Green, where his neat cottage and well-kept garden and green-
house (the latter full of new plants imported by him) was well known
to botanists. The last years of his life he lived at Northfleet, Kent,
where he indulged in his favourite pui'suits of botany and gardening to
the full extent his business occupations would allow.
]VIr. Scheer held advanced liberal views on religion, politics, and
political economy, and spoke and wrote several languages with force
and ease. Nevertheless, he was extremely guarded in what he put on
paper (in that respect taking Robert Brown for his pattern) ;
moreover,
most of his writings were anonymous. Intimate as I was with him, I
often urged him to make a list of at least his pamphlets, or allow me
to do so ; but to this I could never get him to agree. It was quite
satisfactory to him that his ideas should have been promulgated, he
caring little for the honour of having conceived them, as perhaps the
next minute he would have already originated new ones, which one
was welcome to use. He had a great share in the establishment of
the Anti-Corn Law League, the first meeting of which was held in his
ofiice ; and though his name did not appear much in connection with
the subsequent proceedings, he was forging many of the most efli"ective
bolts which others discharged at the bulwark of an unjust and cruel
law. Cobden was at that time one of his most active correspondents,
and often consulted him. A. series of papers which about this period
appeared in the ' ^Morning Chronicle,' and subsequently as a separate
publication, under the title of 'Diogenes' Letters to Sir Robert Peel,'
and which contain some of the best arguments that Anti-Coru-Law
Leaguers could employ, were from Mr. Scheer's pen. When, in 1S39,
the Government thought of doing away with Kew Gardens, he did all
he could, through newspapers and in getting up petitions to Parlia-
ment, to avert the calamity, and also came forward with a small, but
well-written book, ' Kew and its Gardens ' (London, 1840, 8vo).*
* I believe I am correct in stating, in parenthesis, that the first note of
alarm that Kew Gardens were about to be broken up was given by Mr. John