and Proceedings of the late President of the Royal Society. 165 



character. He was of cheerful habits, but an enemy to all kind^ 

 of intemperance. His manners were kind, respectful and obliging: 

 but, says one of his biographers, " his sense of integrity and 

 dignity would not permit him to adopt that false and superficial 

 politeness which treats all men alike, though ever so different in 

 point of real estimation and merit, with the same show of cordia- 

 lity and kindness." 



Such was Sir .John Pringle. Let me now attempt to delineate 

 the character of his successor. 



Sir Joseph Banks (born 1743, elevated to the rank of baronet 

 in 17S1,) was a man of good fortune, and is said to have received 

 a liberal education, partly at Oxford. He early evinced an at- 

 tachment to the pursuit of natural history, and in 1 706, at twenty- 

 three years t)f age became a fellow of the Royal Society. In 

 176S he set sail with Cook in the Endeavour, and during the 

 whole of that interesting voyage paid considerable attention to 

 the natural productions of the various parts of the vvorld they 

 visited. He was assisted in his zoological and botanical re- 

 searches by Dr. Solander, a pupil of Linnaeus. I am not mi- 

 nutely acquainted with the nature and extent of the benefits 

 mutually received and communicated by these two celebrated 

 men ; but one of the wicked wits of the day, who affected to be 

 in the secret, attempted to develop it in a single couplet : 



" Though east, or west, or north, or south, they wander ; 

 You'll find on shallow Banks feeds fat Solander." 



After the return from Cook's first voyage, Mr. Banks made 

 considerable preparations to accompany him a second time: but 

 the circumnavigator and the naturalist had agreed so ill while 

 they were together in the Endeavour, and Cook had been so 

 thoroughly disgusted with the assumption of the great man and 

 the unaccommodating airs of his companion, that he took effec- 

 tual measures to free himself from like vexations during his se- 

 cond voyage. Mr. Banks, to hide from the world his chagrin 

 and mortification, and to appropriate to some useful purpose the 

 expensive apparatus he had prepared to accompany Captain 

 Cook, projected a voyage to Iceland : soon hiring a vessel, he 

 was again accompanied by Dr. Solander. Sir Joseph's biogra- 

 pher in the paper called The Neiv Times says on this occasion, 

 " His hazards were rewarded by the discovery of the cave of 

 Staffa." What was the nature of this discovery I cannot con- 

 jecture. Staffa had been then long known, and even described, 

 though slightly, by Buchanan. Von Troil, Banks and Solander, 

 were conducted to Staffa, by Mr. Maclean, a Scotch gentleman 

 of fortune, who had often been there before, and enabled our 

 voyagers to discover precisely what he showed them. 



Almo:;t 



