336 SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 



And who better deserved the name of a philosopher 

 than he whose life was devoted to the love of wisdom, 

 whose rich reward was the delight of the study, whose 

 more noble ambition left to others the gratification of 

 recording their progress in books, and filling the mouths 

 of men with their names ? Much of what is explained, 

 touching the real pleasures of science, in the life of 

 D'Alembert, is applicable to the career of Sir Joseph 

 Banks.* 



He was of an ancient and wealthy family, established 

 since the reign of Edward III., first in the West Riding 

 of Yorkshire, and afterwards in the county of Lincoln, 

 where they possessed ample estates from the end of 

 the seventeenth century; and a considerable accession 

 of fortune came to them early in the eighteenth, by 

 marriage with an heiress in Derbyshire, named Hodg- 

 kinson, whose estates, by a shifting use in a settlement, 

 were severed from those in Lincolnshire till 1792, when 

 the whole fortune united in the person of Sir Joseph. 



He was born at Argyle Buildings, in London, on 

 the 2d of February, 1743, 0. S., according to a note 

 in his own handwriting which lies before me, contrary 

 to several accounts which represent him as born in 

 Lincolnshire in December of that year.f After being 

 placed for some time under a private tutor, he was in 

 his ninth year sent to Harrow and four years after to 

 Eton, where his good disposition and cheerful temper 

 recommended him to his masters ; but they complained 

 of his extreme aversion to study, and inordinate love of 

 active sports. In about twelve months, however, when 

 in his fourteenth year, his tutor found him reading at 

 the hours of play, and the change which had been 

 effected in his habits was described by himself to Sir 

 Everard Home as arising from an accidental circum- 

 stance. One day he had been bathing with his fellow 

 Etonians ; and on coming out of the water to dress, 



* See Life of D'Alembert, and Appendix to Life of Robertson, vol. ii. 

 f The parish register of St. James's makes his birth 4th January. 



