JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 155 



" For many years past Mr. Smithson lias resided abroad, principally, 

 I believe, on account of his health; but he carried with him the esteem 

 and regard of various private friends, and of a still larger number of 

 persona who appreciated and admired his acquirements." * 



This tribute to his memory and worth shows the high standing Smith- 

 son had attained in the estimation of his compeers, and that he secured 

 the fidelity and affection of his dependants is evinced by the care with 

 which, in his will, he provides a reward for their attachment and services. 



" It lias been the lot of the greatest part of those who have excelled in 

 science." says Dr. Johnson, "to be known only by their own writings, and 

 to have left behind them no remembrance of their domestic life or pri- 

 vate transactions, or only such memorials of particular passages as are 

 on certain occasions necessarily recorded in public registers." 



To the same effect, Wilson, in his life of Cavendish (the warm friend of 

 Smithson), remarks: "So careless has his own country been of his mem- 

 ory that although he was for some fifty years a well-known and very dis- 

 tinguished Fellow of the Royal Society, a member for a lengthened period 

 of the French Institute, and an object of European interest to men of 

 science, yet scarcely anything can be learned concerning his early history. 

 This, no doubt, is owing in great part to his own dislike of publicity, and 

 to the reserve and love of retirement which strongly characterized him. 

 Long before his death however, he was so conspicuous a person in the 

 scientific circles of London that the incidents of his early life might 

 readily have been ascertained. They were not, it should seem, inquired 

 into by any biographer."t 



This is eminently true of Smithson. We are unfortunately debarred 

 from acquiring an intimate knowledge of his personal traits and peculi- 

 arities by the absence of an autobiography, or even of any sketch of his 

 life by his friends. For this reason we are more ready to avail ourselves 

 of every fact in regard to him that can be ascertained, however trivial or 

 insignificant any one of these might otherwise be c msidered. Even an 

 inventory of his wardrobe and a schedule of his personal property pos- 

 sesses an interest and serves at least to gratify a natural curiosity. Such 

 a list has recently been found as certified by the English consul at Genoa, 

 after the death of Smithson, with a valuation of the different articles : 



Francs. 

 A carriage, complete '■!, 500 00 



Twenty-six silver forks, one salad fork, eight desert spoons, 

 eighteen spoons, four sauce-ladles, one soup ladle, four salt 

 spoons, three sugar ladles, one tea shell, three silver-head 

 corks, two silver vessels, one toasting fork, weighing in all 

 193.) ; ounces of silver, valued by Mr. A. Canissa, a goldsmith 1, 050 00 



An English gold repeater 200 00 



* The Philosophical Magazine, January -June, 1831, vol. ix, p. 41. 

 t George Wilson. Life of Henry Cavendish. London, 1851. 



