INTRODLCTION cHx 



to his parents during liis residence in Edinburgh are printed in the 

 Memoir by Lady Smith ; in one of these he describes his ascent of 

 Ben Lomond, and gives a list of the plants he found on that mountain. 

 He left Edinburgh in 1783, and proceeded to London for the purpose 

 of studying anatomy. From thence he writes that he is charmed 

 with John Hunter, the eminent surgeon ; ' he alone/ he says, ' is 

 worth coming to live in London for.* He also made acquaintance 

 with Sir Joseph Banks, and it was in London that he first heard that 

 the museum and library of Linnaeus were for sale, Sir Joseph Banks 

 having had the first offer of them from Dr. Acrel for the sum of one 

 thousand guineas. ' It happened that day,' says Smith, 'that I break- 

 fasted with Sir Joseph Banks, and he told me of the offer he had 

 had, saying that he should decline it ; he handed me the letter to 

 read, and advised me strongly to make the purchase.' The father at 

 Norwich yielded to his son's request, and supplied the requisite sum 

 of money : the purchase was therefore effected, to the disappointment 

 of Professor Sibthorp of Oxford, who was anxious to obtain a collection, 

 which, united to those which the University already possessed, would 

 have placed it in a distinctly pre-eminent position. In a letter to 

 his father, Smith writes : ' The whole number of volumes of the 

 Linnean Library thus purchased is about 3,000, the MSS. also being 

 very valuable ; the herbarium consists of about 19,000 plants, and 

 there are over 3,000 insects.' Directly after the ship TJie Appearance 

 containing the collection had set sail from Sweden, Gustavus III, who 

 had been absent in France, returned home and sent a ship of war 

 to the Sound to intercept the English ship, but happily too late. 

 The collection was first deposited in hired apartments in Chelsea. 

 Sibthorp addressed a letter to Smith on Jan. i, 1785, in which he says : 

 ' Give me leave to congratulate you upon your late acquisition of the 

 Linnean cabinet. The disappointment I feel in not possessing it 

 myself is in a great measure alleviated by the kind opportunity you 

 offer me of consulting it on my return to England. We were com- 

 petitors fi'om a laudable ambition, and I trust are not worse friends 

 for our competition. You have left me only one wish, that in case 

 you should ever be disposed to part with it, you will give me the 

 first refusal.' On May 28 of the same year, Smith was admitted 

 a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1786 he commenced a tour through 

 Holland, France, Switzerland, and Italy, the immediate object 

 of which was to obtain a medical degree at Leyden He writes 

 from Naples to his father in 1787, that while in Rome he had 

 frequently seen the Pretender, ' who drinks very hard.' In Nov. 

 1787 he returned to England, and in 1793 published his Sketch of a Tour 

 on the Continent in three volumes octavo. Through the friendship of 

 Dr. Goodenough he was introduced to Queen Charlotte, who gave him 



