Sir Joseph Banks, Bart. 3 



lege, in the University of Oxford ; and his father dying in 

 1761, he entered the world at the age of eighteen, master of 

 himself and his fortune. This might have proved a dangerous 

 shoal for so yoimg a man ; but henceforth Mr Banks was only 

 sensible to the enjoyments attached to the labours of the mind, 

 and the only use he made of his liberty was to devote himself 

 exclusively to them. 



About this period, Natural History began to raise itself from 

 the low condition in which the more advanced sciences had kept 

 it. The eloquent pictures of BufFon, and the ingenious classi- 

 fications of Linnaeus, afforded numerous attractions to the 

 mind. In the steps of these celebrated men, there were seen 

 to open paths alike new and full of interest ; and it was in ex- 

 ploring these paths that a young man would naturally engage, 

 who devoted himself to science only for the sake of gratifying 

 his inclination. Mr Banks, therefore, at an early period, en- 

 gaged in the examination of the productions of nature, and 

 especially those of the vegetable kingdom. His taste for plants 

 soon changed into a passion, and he made all the sacrifices to 

 their investigation that it required. The first of these, as every 

 ^ody knows, is to travel much on foot ; and this sacrifice is 

 more disagreeable than any other in a country where this mode 

 of travelling is so little in use, that it might of itself render a 

 man hable to be suspected. Our young botanist was in fact 

 more than once taken for a thief ; and one day that he had fal- 

 len asleep from fatigue at a distance from the highway, he was 

 violently seized by officers of police, and carried bound before a 

 Magistrate, who was much amused with the adventure. 



However, his ardour for study did not make him forget to 

 take care of his affairs. From this time, also, he began to re- 

 flect, that the way in which he could be enabled to serve society 

 with most ease, was to put himself in a condition for serving it, 

 without demanding assistance from it. The most considerable 

 part of his property was situated at Revesby, in Lincolnshire, 

 upon the borders of that vast extent of marshy meadows which 

 surrounds Boston Bay, the nature of which, in its characters, 

 bears so close a resemblance to the province of Holland, that a 

 portion of it has obtained the same name. He spent a part of the 



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