The Gallery of Portraits (All 7 Volumes). Arthur Thomas Malkin
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itself satisfied with the choice which it had made. Horsley and a few others seceded, and for the rest of his life Banks continued the undisputed and popular president; a period of forty-one years from the epoch of his election.
We have said that at an early age Mr. Banks was fortunate in gaining the royal favour; marks of which were not wanting. In 1781 he was created a baronet; in 1795 he received the Order of the Bath, then very rarely bestowed upon civilians and commoners; and in 1797 he was made a Privy Councillor. The friendship between the King and the subject was cemented by similarity of pursuits; for the latter was a practical farmer as well as a philosopher, and under his care the value of his estates in Lincolnshire was considerably increased by improvements in the drainage of that singular country, in the direction of which Sir Joseph took an active part. He is said to have possessed such influence over the King’s mind, that ministers sometimes availed themselves of it to recommend a measure unpalatable to their honest but somewhat obstinate master. We know not whether this be better founded than most other stories of back-stairs influence, easily thrown out and difficult to be refuted: it is at least certain that if Banks possessed such power, he deserves great credit for the singular moderation with which he used it. For himself he asked and received nothing: fortunately his station in society was one which renders disinterestedness an easy, if not a common virtue. His influence was directed to facilitate scientific undertakings, to soften to men of science the inconveniences of the long war of the Revolution, to procure the restoration of their papers and collections when taken by an enemy, or the alleviation of their sufferings in captivity. The French were especially indebted to him for such services. It is said by an eminent member of the Institute, in his Eloge upon Banks, that no less than ten times, collections addressed to the Jardin du Roi at Paris, and captured by the English, were restored by his intercession to their original destination. He thought that national hostility should find no entrance among followers of science; and the delicacy of his views on this subject is well displayed in a letter written on one of these occasions to Jussieu, where he says that he would on no account rob of a single botanical idea a man who had gone to seek them at the peril of his life. In 1802 the National Institute of France, being then re-modelled, elected him at the head of their Foreign Associates, whose number was limited to eight. Cavendish, Maskelyne, and Herschel were also members of this distinguished list. In replying to the letter which announced this honour, Sir Joseph Banks expressed his gratitude in terms which gave offence to some members of that distinguished Society over which he himself presided. This exposed him to a virulent attack from an anonymous enemy, who published the letter in question in the English papers, accompanied by a most acrimonious address to the author of it; prompted, it is evident, not so much by a reasonable and patriotic jealousy, as by ancient pique, and a bitter detestation even of the science of revolutionary France.
Towards the close of life Sir Joseph Banks, who in youth had possessed a robust constitution, and a dignified and prepossessing figure, was grievously afflicted by gout. He endured the sufferings of disease with patience and cheerfulness, and died May 19, 1820, leaving no children. Lady Banks, whom he had married in 1779, survived him several years. His magnificent library he devised to the British Museum; and among other bequests for scientific purposes, he left an annuity to Mr. Frederic Bauer, an artist whom he had long employed in making botanical drawings from the garden at Kew, upon condition that he should continue the series.
Banksia ericifolia.
END OF VOL. I.
Volume 2
Table of Contents
Engraved by T. A. Dean. LORD CHANCELLOR SOMERS. From a Picture by Sir G. Kneller, in the possession of the Royal Society. Under the Superintendence of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. London, Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East.
SOMERS.
John Somers was born at Worcester, in an ancient house called the White Ladies, which, as its name seems to import, had formerly been part of a monastery or convent. The exact date of his birth cannot be ascertained, as the parish registers at Worcester, during the civil wars between Charles I. and his Parliament, were either wholly lost, or so inaccurately kept as not to furnish any authentic information. It appears probable, however, from several concurring accounts, that he was born about the year 1650. The family of Somers was respectable, though not wealthy, and had for several generations been possessed of an estate at Clifton, in the parish of Severnstoke, in