SIE JOSEPH BANKS. 363 



their way into the Society, though their object only 

 was to use the title of Fellows as a snare for enticing 

 customers.* 



As for the charge of favouring natural history at the 

 expense of the severer sciences, never was anything 

 more unfounded. Full as many papers had been 

 received and printed by Sir Joseph Banks's Council on 

 the latter subject, as had ever been so treated in any 

 other period ; quite as small a proportion of papers 

 upon the former. The Copley medal, five times be- 

 stowed, had been thrice given to mathematical and 

 astronomical papers, twice to chemical; and I may add, 

 never either then or since, to papers upon the subjects 

 which the President was supposed most to favour. 

 The appearance of a naturalist in the chair was a 

 phenomenon by no means now for the first time ob- 

 served in the sphere of the Society. Sir Isaac Newton 

 himself had been succeeded by Sir Hans Sloane, who 

 filled the chair fourteen years, and preceded by Lord 

 Somers, whose eminence is certainly not scientific, 

 though it may be of a higher order. Of the nineteen 

 Presidents before Sir Joseph Banks, nearly, if not 

 quite the greater number were men of eminent station, 

 who never, either before or after their elevation to the 

 chair, were known to have cultivated, much less im- 

 proved, any branch of " natural knowledge." Nor let 

 it be supposed, as Dr. Horsley and his more factious 

 adherents used to represent, that none but botanists 

 opposed their proceedings, and sided with the Presi- 

 dent. The names of Cavendish, "Watson, Fordyce, 

 Heberden, Hunter, Kirwan, are quite sufficient, both 

 in number and value, to rescue Sir J. Banks's sup- 

 porters from that imputation, and to take from their 

 adversaries all pretence that they had a monopoly of 

 important science. 



Although the majorities were obtained and the de- 



* One was the patentee of a new water-closet. 



