Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/273

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274
The Strand Magazine.

Portraits of Celebrities at different times of their Lives.

PROFESSOR OWEN.

Born 1804.

Age 32.
Samuel A. Walker, 233, Regent Street.
Age 52.
From a Photo. by Maull & Fox.


R ICHARD OWEN, naturalist, was born at Lancaster, and in early life evinced great love of the sea, and entered the Navy as a middy; but he was only ten years old when he left the Tribune to become a pupil of a surgeon. At twenty-one he
Age 85.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
entered as a student at St. Bartholomew's, where he soon attracted the notice of the great Abernethy, who showed him much kindness, and prevented him from accepting a post as a ship's surgeon in 1826. "Going to sea, sir!" said Abernethy, "you are going to the devil!" "I hope not, sir!" "Go to sea! You had better, I tell you, go to the devil at once," reiterated rough but glorious John, and offered him an appointment at the College of Surgeons. Thus the Navy lost a good officer and Science gained one of her brightest ornaments, "The Newton of Natural History." Professor Owen is a member of every learned Society of eminence in the world, and Her Majesty has appropriately recognised his great services to Science by granting him as a residence Sheen Lodge, in Richmond Park.