26 TEOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



tlie subject of which was the necessity of the extension of the Royal 

 liotanic Garden. The following particulars as to the history of the 

 garden were given : — " There exist documents which clearly show that 

 we owe the first rudiments of a Botanical Garden to the public spirit 

 and influence of two of the most ren\arkable men in the profession of 

 physic in this country during the last half of the 17th century, Sir 

 Andrew Balfour and Sir liobeit Sibbald. Both of them were much 

 attached to the cultivation of plants, foreign as well as domestic. Sir 

 Andrew Balfour, in particular, had made himself familiar with 

 botany as it stood at that time, through means of the extensive 

 opportunities he had enjoyed for several years during his travels on 

 the Continent, especially in Trance and Italy. He appears to have 

 been strongly impressed with the idea, that by means of a suitable 

 public garden important medicinal plants might easily be introduced 

 into Scotland and cultivated for medical use, for which medical men 

 were dependent on the uncertain and costly communication which at 

 that time existed between Scotland and foreign countries. It ap- 

 pears from a manuscript life of Sir Eobert Sibbald, in the Library of 

 the Faculty of Advocates, and quoted by Bower' in his ' History of 

 the University of Edinburgh,' that Sibbald and Balfour, with the 

 concurrence of a zealous horticulturist, Murray of Livingstone, hired 

 ' an enclosure of some forty feet every way,' to the north of Holy- 

 rood Abbey, from that ubiquitous person, John Brown ; — that they 

 put it in charge of a youthful practical gardener, James Sutherland, 

 who afterwards became Professor of Botany — and that they stocked 

 their little garden-plot with ' a collection of eight or nine hundred 

 plants,' multum in parvo assuredly. This initiative step seems to 

 have been taken in 1670. But the ambition of the botanical trium- 

 virate did not lie long content with John Brown's diminutive patch of 

 ground. They had influence enough to interest in their work the 

 Lords of Session, the Faculty of Advocates, the Town Council, the 

 Earl of Perth, and the Scottish Exchequer ; funds were thus supplied 

 from various quarters, and the town granted a lease of the Trinity 

 Hospital Garden, which then became known by the new name of 

 ' Physic Garden,' the site of which is still marked out by a 'row of 

 houses of that name facing northwards the North British Eailway 

 Station and Calton Hill. Thus was instituted in 1676, for the first 

 time in the correct meaning of the designation, ' The Edinburgh 

 Botanic Garden.' It is not unworthy of remark, that this undertaking, 

 which has proved of such signal service to our University and city, was 

 at first vehemently opposed by the predecessors of our present 

 College of Surgeons, the ' Chirurgeon Apothecaryes.' Their 

 objection was a dread that the establishment of such a garden might 

 lead to the creation of a College of Physicians. One does not easily 

 see the connection. But apparently the avowal of the dread led to 

 the realisation of what was dreaded : for in five years more the 

 Koyal College of Physicians was erected by royal charter, and mainly 

 through the exertions of Sir Robert Sibbald and Sir Andrew Balfour. 

 The founders of the Physic Garden were fourtunate in their choice of 

 its overseer. A knowledge of botany, however, was not the only 

 accomplishment which attracted Sir Andrew Balfour to James 

 Sutherland. Both of them were collectors of coins and keen numis- 



