SMITHSONIAN BEQUEST. 55 



an ancient family in Wiltshire of the name of Hungerford; that he was 

 educated at Oxford, where he took an honorary degree in 1786; that 

 he went under the name of James Lewis Macie until a few years after 

 he had left the university, when he took that of Smithson, 1 ever after 

 signing only James Smithson, as in his will; that he does not appear to 

 have had any fixed home, lived in lodgings when in London, and occa- 

 sionally staying a year or two at a time in cities on the Continent, as 

 Paris, Berlin, Florence, Genoa, at which last he died; and that the 

 ample provision made for him by the Duke of Northumberland, with 

 retired and simple habits, enabled him to accumulate the fortune which 

 now passes to the United States. 2 I have inquired if his political 

 opinions or bias were supposed to be of a nature that led him to 

 select the United States as the great trustee of his enlarged and 

 philanthropic views. The reply has been that his opinions, as far as 

 known or inferred, were thought to favor monarchical rather than 

 popular institutions; 3 but that he interested himself little in questions 

 of government, being devoted to science, and chiefly chemistry; that 



1 It was only under circumstances which showed that he had no right to the 

 name of Macie (which seems to have first been imposed upon him under circum- 

 stances which left him free to change it), that he in later life had that of Smithson, 

 to which he had every moral right, legally confirmed to him. (S. P. Langley, op. tit. ) 



2 The property disposed of by the will is believed to have been received chiefly 

 from Col. Henry Louis Dickinson, a son of his mother by a former marriage, 

 though he is known to have received a legacy of 3,000 from Dorothy Percy, his 

 half-sister on his father's side; but unless through this, it is proper to state that there 

 is no indication that any portion whatever of the Smithson bequest was derived from 

 the Northumberland family. (S. P. Langley, op. tit. ) 



3 The Smithsonian Institution received in 1884 abundant proof that Smithson was 

 imbued with republican notions by a letter he wrote at Paris, May 9, 1792, to his 

 friend Da vies Gilbert, of the Royal Society, in which he says: 



"Well! things are going on! Qa ira is growing the song of England, of Europe, as 

 well as of France. Men of every rank are joining in the chorus. Stupidity and 

 guilt have had a long reign, and it begins, indeed, to be time for justice and common 

 sense to have their turn. * ' Every Englishman I converse with, almost 



every Englishman I see or hear of, appears to be of the democratic .party. Mr. 

 Davis, high sheriff for Dorsetshire, left this town to-day and takes with him, it 

 seems, a quantity of tricolor ribbon to deck his men with the French national cock- 

 ades, and I do not think this example unworthy of imitation by those whose prin- 

 ciples lead them to consider with indifference and contempt the frowns of the court 

 party, to whom, doubtless, the mixture of red, white, and blue is an object of horror. 

 * * * Mr. Louis Bourbon is still at Paris, and the office of king is not yet abol- 

 ished, but they daily feel the inutility, or rather great inconvenience, of continuing 

 it, and its duration will probably not be long. May other nations, at the time of 

 their reforms, be wise enough to cast off, at first, the contemptible incumbrance. I 

 consider a nation with a king as a man who takes a lion as a guard-dog if he knocks 

 out his teeth he renders him useless, while if he leaves the lion his teeth the lion 

 eats him. 



"I remain, dear sir, yours, very sincerely, 



"JAMES L. MACIE." 



(Smithsonian Report, 1894.) 



