M E 31 I R 



SIR JOSEPH BANKS 



Although we cannot claim for the subject of our 

 present memoir that exalted rank as a practical 

 naturalist, by which Linnseus and Cuvier have been 

 distinguished, though as an author he may be said 

 to be almost unknown ; yet there have been few 

 men in this country to whom physical science is 

 more beholden, as his whole life was devoted to the 

 encouragement, and his ample fortune to the illus- 

 tration of it in all its branches. He lived before 

 the taste for natural history had become generally 

 diffused, and it was his pride and his delight to 

 give it that fostering protection it required in his 

 day, from the wealthy and the noble. At the pre- 

 sent time, when a society exists for the promotion 

 of each department of natural history, when Lon- 

 don, Dublin, and Edinburgh, &c., boast of zoologi- 

 cal collections, and a botanic garden, a museum, 



VOL. XXXVIII. B 



