172 A Review of some leading Points in the Official Character 



Banks being appointed his successor the same evening. Whether 

 he had or had not engaged to reverse the laws of nature, I am 

 not prepared to say. 



Sir Joseph was no sooner seated in the President's cha-r than he 

 began to manifest his dislike of Americans and American philo- 

 sophy *, and of all those members who accidentally testified 

 their esteem of his learned predecessor. He also gave the most 

 decisive indications of his philosophical bigotry, of his determi- 

 nation unduly to exalt some branches of inquiry, and as unduly 

 to depreciate others ; and of another determination, which he 

 had not sufficient discretion to disguise, to convert a fellowship 

 or brotherhood of philosophers, into a monarchy, or rather into 

 a despotism, of which he alone was to be the focus of power and 

 authority. Such is the force of self-delusion, when a coterie of 

 svcophantic danglers surround an individual of this description, 

 and foster his love of domination, that it would seem as though 

 Sir.)oseph actually fancied himself a kind of monarch, and formed 

 his phraseology and expected to be approached accordingly. It 

 was no longer the Council of the Royal Society, or the Secretaries 

 of that learned body, but " My Coimcil," "My Secretaries," 

 *' My Assessors," " My Society," Sm. He held his court in 

 Soho Square ; and none but those who were introduced into the 

 regal apartments there in due form, and danced attendance with 

 due frequency, could obtain admission into the Royal Society, or 

 continue to attend its meetings with comfort, if they had been 

 elected fellows in better days. 



That men of real genius and science should be disgusted with 

 all this, was naturally to be expected ; as well as that men of in- 

 dependence should make some efforts to deliver themselves from 

 so disgraceful a thraldom. Hence originated the new class of 

 di«sentions which agitated the Royal Society between the years 

 1781 and 1735, and to which the eulogists of Sir .Joseph Banks 

 have now so unwisely recalled the public attention. Of these 

 dissentions it is tiie more necessary a correct account should here 

 be exliibited ; because some of Sir .Joseph's partisans, as though 

 the lapse of six-and-thirty years had not been sufficient to cool 

 their resentment, make them the basis of recent and renewed 



calumnies t- 



« The 



* This anti-American spirit is scarcely ypt extinguished. Seven years 

 ago there were not more than thi-ce Aiiiericaii fellows of the Royal Society j 

 and even at the present moment there are not siv. 



t A biographer of Sir .Joseph Banks in the New Times of July 14, 1820, 

 whose ignorance of science and of facts is so obvious, that it would be a 

 waste of time to render it more prominent, terminates his misrepresentation 

 of these matters, thus: 



" All intellectual propensities have their merits [those of lying, slandering 

 and thieving, for example], and the use of practical mathematics is impor- 

 tant 



