Biography : — Sh' James Smith. 91 



may wish to be able to identify those splendid wanderers, I subjoin- the 



following memoranda for May and June, which shows when the planets 

 will be in conjunction with the moon. 



Art. IX. Biography, 



Death of Sir J. E. Smithy President of the Linnean Society.—' On Mon- 

 day, March 17. at his house in Norwich, aged sixty-eight, died the distin- 

 guished naturalist, Sir James Edward Smith, M.D. F.R.S., Member of the 

 Academies of Stockholm, Upsal, Turin, Lisbon, Philadelphia, New York, 

 &c^ &c. ; the Imperial Acad. Naturae Curios., and the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences at Paris ; Honorary Member of the Horticultural Society of 

 London, and forty years President of the Linnean Society. 



Born at Norwich, Dec. 2. 1759, where he received his education; went 

 to Edinburgh, in 1780, having previously devoted himself to the study of 

 natural history, and botany in particular. During his medical studies at 

 that university, he so far distinguished himself as a botanist, as to obtain 

 the gold medal given to the best proficient among the students in that 

 science. 



Upon leaving Edinburgh, and going to London to perfect his professional 

 studies, he became acquainted with Sir Joseph Banks, that eminent patron 

 of natural science and of all its ardent admirers ; upon whose recommend- 

 ation he purchased, in 1784, " the celebrated Linnean collection^* com- 

 prising the epistolary correspondence of the great Linneus and his son, 

 together with every thing that belonged to those eminent men, relating 

 to natural history or medicine. 



From that period, the life of Mr. Smith was devoted to a zealous cul- 

 tivation of the science of natural history ; and his numerous works will 

 constitute a perpetual monument of that fame which no living author 

 more duly merited or more justly obtained. 



Having purchased the Linnean collection, and settled in London as an 

 acknowledged man of science, in the year 1786 he graduated as a physician 

 at Leyden. In that and the following year he visited most of the classical 

 and celebrated places of France and Italy. The account of these travels 

 was published in 1793, under the title of A Sketch of a Tour on the Conti- 

 nent, in 3 vols. 8vo ; a work which at once raised the subject of our me- 

 moir into the first class of literary society. 



Upon his return to London, Dr. Smith (in conjunction with his lately 

 deceased and highly valued friend, Dr. Goodenough, Lord Bishop of Car- 

 lisle, who was one of the original vice-presidents, and Thomas Marshara, 

 Esq., who became Treasurer) set about establishing the Linnean Society, 

 of which Dr. Smith was the original president^ and to which distinguished 

 office he was annually and unanimously chosen from that period to the 

 present time. 



The first meeting was held April 8. 1788, when " an introductory dis- 

 course on the rise and progress of natural history," was read by the Pre- 

 sident. This forms the first article of the Transactions] of the Linnean 

 Society ; a work which has already extended to fourteen or fifteen quarto 

 volumes. 



