SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 335 



take a yet more remarkable instance ; how little of 

 Watt's great and lasting fame depends on any written 

 work which he has left ! The like may be truly said of 

 Arkwright; nay, the most important of inventions, the 

 art of printing, is disputed by two names, Coster and 

 Guttcnbcrg, neither of which is connected with the 

 composition of any literary work whatever. 



As men who have by their researches advanced the 

 bounds of science, " inventas aut qui vitam excoluere 

 per artes," may never have given any written works 

 to the world, and yet merit a high place among the 

 greatest philosophers, so may others who have filled 

 the less exalted but highly useful sphere of furthering 

 the progress of the sciences or the arts, deserve a 

 distinguished place among philosophers for the same 

 reason which entitles authors to such a station, although 

 they may never have contributed by any discoveries 

 to the advancement of the sciences which they culti- 

 vated. The excellent and eminent individual whose 

 life we are about to contemplate falls within this de- 

 scription ; for although his active exertions for upwards 

 of half a century left traces most deeply marked in the 

 history of the natural sciences, and though his whole 

 life was given up to their pursuit, it so happened, that 

 with the exception of one or two tracts upon agricul- 

 tural and horticultural questions, he never gave any 

 work of his own composition to the world, nor left be- 

 hind him anything, beyond his extensive correspon- 

 dence with other cultivators of science. It is from this 

 circumstance that not even an attempt has ever been 

 made to write the history of Sir Joseph Banks. And 

 yet, what so worthy of contemplation as the history of 

 one who loved science for its own sake, who delighted 

 in the survey of important facts connected with the 

 study of nature, or tracing interesting truths belonging 

 to tne same branch of knowledge ; whose pursuit of 

 knowledge was wholly disinterested, not even stimulated 

 by the hope of fame as the reward of his labours ? 



