SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 19 



to have occupied his ardent mind, and botany, in 

 particular, to which public attention had been 

 excited through the recent publication of the 

 Linnaean system in England, was his favourite 

 pursuit. The gardens of Lee and Kennedy, at 

 Hammersmith, supplied him with foreign plants, 

 and his own industry and research for British 

 specimens completed his practical instruction in 

 this fascinating and exhilarating department of 

 study. 



Soon after he left the university, his friend Lieu- 

 tenant Phipps, afterwards Earl of Mulgrave, being 

 ordered with a ship of war to protect the New- 

 foundland fisheries, Mr Banks gave the earliest 

 proof of his eager desire for knowledge, by sacri- 

 ficing the advantages and comforts of his station 

 as a wealthy landed proprietor just coming of 

 age, and accompanying his friend on his voyage 

 to this inhospitable climate. The stern realities 

 of privation and danger with which he thus 

 became acquainted, however interesting in the 

 narrative, were calculated to check the ardour of 

 a young man of independent fortune, and it 

 might reasonably have been expected that he 

 would have rested satisfied with this first attempt, 

 and have henceforth been content with the reports 

 of others ; but this was far from the case. They 

 daunted not the inquiring mind of Mr Banks, 

 for he no sooner heard of the expedition that 

 government were about to fit out for the South 



