POSTERITY is likely to do scanty justice to the merits of Banks, when the grateful recollections of his contemporaries shall have passed away. His name is connected with no great discovery, no striking improvement; and he has left no literary works from which the extent of his industry, or the amount of his knowledge can be estimated. Yet he did much for the cause of science; much by his personal exertions, more by a judicious and liberal use of the advantages of fortune. For more than half a century a zealous and successful student of natural history in general, and particularly of botany, the history of his scientific life is to be found in the records of science during that long and active period. We shall not attempt to compress so intricate and extensive a subject within the brief limits of seven or eight pages, but confine ourselves to a short sketch of his character and personal adventures. Some fitting person will, it is to

be hoped, ere too late, undertake to write the life of our distinguished countryman upon a scale calculated to do justice to his merits: at present this task is not only unperformed, but unattempted.

Joseph Banks was born in London, January 4, 1743. Of his childhood we find few memorials. He passed through the ordinary routine of education; having been first committed to the care of a private tutor at home, then placed at Harrow, afterwards at Eton, and finally sent to complete his studies at Christchurch, Oxford. Born to the inheritance of an ample fortune, and left an orphan at the age of eighteen, it is no small praise that he was not allured by the combined temptations of youth, wealth, and freedom, to seek his happiness in vicious or even idle pleasures. Science, in one of its most attractive branches, the study of animated nature, was his amusement as a school-boy, and the favourite pursuit of his mature years; and he was rewarded for his devotion, not merely in the rank and estimation which he obtained by its means, but also in his immunity from the dangers which society throws in the way of those who have the means of gratifying their own passions, and the vanities and interests of their friends.

He quitted the university in the year 1763. In 1766 he gave a proof of his zeal for knowledge by engaging in a voyage to Newfoundland. He was induced to choose that most unattractive region, by having the opportunity of accompanying a friend, Lieutenant Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, well known as a navigator of the Polar Seas, who was sent out in a ship of war to protect the fisheries. Soon after his return a much more interesting and important field of inquiry was opened to him by the progress of discovery in the southern hemisphere. În 1764 Commodore Byron, in 1766 Captains Wallis and Carteret were sent into the South Sea, to investigate

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the geography of that immense and then unfrequented region. These expeditions were succeeded in 1768 by another under the command of Captain Cook, who first obtained celebrity as a navigator upon this occasion. Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, possessed an estate in Lincolnshire on the borders of the Whittlesea Mere. Mr. Banks's chief property lay in the same neighbourhood; and it so chanced that similarity of tastes, and especially a common predilection for all aquatic amusements, had produced a great intimacy between the statesman and his young country neighbour. To this fortunate circumstance it may probably be ascribed, that on Mr. Banks expressing a wish to accompany the projected expedition, his desire was immediately granted. His preparations were made on the most liberal scale. He laid in an ample store of such articles as would be useful or acceptable to the savage tribes whom he was about to visit: and besides the usual philosophical apparatus of a voyage of discovery, he engaged two draughtsmen to make accurate representations of such objects as could not be preserved, or conveyed to England; and he secured the services of Dr. Solander, a Swedish naturalist, a pupil of Linnæus, who had previously been placed on the establishment of the British Museum. The history of this voyage belongs to the life of Cook. The expedition bent its course for the Southern Ocean, through the Straits of Le Maire, at the southern end of America. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander landed on the desolate island of Terra del Fuego, where the severity of the cold had very nearly proved fatal to several of their party. Dr. Solander in particular was so entirely overcome by the drowsiness consequent on extreme cold and exhaustion, that it was with great difficulty, and by the unwearied exertion and resolution of his more robust companion, that he was prevented from falling

into that sleep which is the forerunner of death. Their farther course lay through the islands of the Pacific Ocean to Otaheite, which had been selected as a fitting place for the main object of the voyage, the observing of the passage of Venus over the sun's disk. At that island their stay was consequently prolonged for several months, during which the Europeans and the natives mingled together, generally on the most friendly terms. In this intercourse Mr. Banks took a very leading part. His liberality, and the high station which he evidently held among the strangers, conciliated the attachment and respect of the unpolished islanders; and the mingled sauvity and firmness of his temper and demeanour rendered him singularly fitted both to protect the weaker party from the occasional wantonness or presumption of their visitors, and to check their knavery, and obtain satisfaction for the thefts which they not unfrequently committed. Once the astronomical purposes of the navigators were nearly frustrated by the loss of the large brass quadrant; and the recovery of this important instrument was chiefly due to the exertions and influence of Mr. Banks. Both hemispheres owe to him a tribute of gratitude; for while he gave the savages the improved tools, the esculent vegetables, and the domesticated animals of Europe, his exertions led to the introduction of the bread-fruit, and of the productive sugar-cane peculiar to Otaheite, into our West-India colonies.

After the lapse of three years the Voyagers returned home, and were received with lively interest by all classes of society. Parts of their collections were lost through an accident which happened to the vessel : but the greater portion was preserved, and their novelty and beauty excited the admiration of naturalists. George III., who delighted in everything connected with horticulture and farming, manifested a warm inte

rest in inquiring into the results of the expedition, and conceived a liking for the young traveller, which continued unimpaired even to the close of his public life.

It was Mr. Banks's intention to accompany Captain Cook in his second voyage, in 1772; but the Navy Board showed no willingness to provide that accommodation which the extent of his preparations and the number of his scientific followers required, and he gave up the project, which indeed he could not satisfactorily execute. In the summer of that year he went to Iceland. Passing along the western coast of Scotland, he was led to visit Staffa, in consequence of local information; and to his description that singular island was first indebted for its general celebrity. He spent a month in Iceland. An account of this visit has been published by M. Von Troil, a Swedish clergyman, who formed one of the party. On this, as on other occasions, Mr. Banks, unwearied in quest of knowledge, seemed careless of the fame to which most would have aspired as the reward of his labours. Of none of his travels has he himself given any account in a separate publication; indeed, a few papers in the Horticultural Transactions, and a very curious account of the causes of mildew in corn, not printed for sale, constitute the mass of his published works. But his visit was productive of much good to the Icelanders, though it remained uncommemorated in expensive quartos. He watched over their welfare, when their communication with Denmark was interrupted by war between that country and England; and twice sent cargoes of corn, at his own expense, to relieve their sufferings in seasons of scarcity. His benevolence was warmly acknowledged by the Danish Court.

Returning to England, Mr. Banks, at the early age of thirty, entered on that tranquil and useful course of life, from which during a long series of years he never deviated. His thirst for travel was checked or sa