288 THE EDINBURGH PROFESSORS 



subjects of Botany and Materia Medica. Problems of the 

 former now pressing were not those specially relating to 

 medicinal plants. He therefore managed to carry through an 

 arrangement by which he retained a chair as Professor of Medicine 

 and Botany, and a new Professorship of Materia Medica was 

 created. The importance of this step for botanical progress was 

 great it was not merely a question of time occupied but of 

 scientific outlook. 



Another movement in the direction of concentration of 

 effort in the cause of Botany was initiated by Hope early in 

 his official career that for the creation of a new Botanic Garden 

 in a locality outside the immediate influence of town atmo- 

 sphere, in which the collections distributed over the Holyrood 

 and Town Gardens could be combined. He accomplished his 

 design, and not only this, but obtained from the Crown a perma- 

 nent endowment for the new Garden. This was no small 

 achievement but the omens were favourable, for those patrons 

 of science the Earl of Bute and, later, the Duke of Portland, 

 were in power when the Professor made use of the great 

 influence which his family possessed to secure his ends. A 

 spreading city in time made the location of Hope's new Garden 

 unsuitable, and it was transferred to the present site ; but it was 

 the effort by Hope which gave the Botanic Garden, and through 

 it Botany, a status among institutions requiring subsidy and 

 maintenance by Government in Scotland, and the obligation so 

 imposed has been upheld notwithstanding an attempt in later 

 years on the part of the Government to get rid of it an attempt 

 which the short-sighted policy of the University nearly allowed 

 to succeed. 



Hope's duties in his University Chair required of him, in 

 addition to his botanical work, clinical teaching in the Hospital, 

 and he also engaged in practice this for a livelihood and took 

 active share in the affairs of the Royal College of Physicians, 

 of which he was President at the time of his death, which 

 occurred in 1786. Botany could therefore claim but a portion 

 of his time. 



Having established the new Garden, he laboured with 

 assiduity to lay it out effectively, and then to enrich it with 



