SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 367 



He was thus for upwards of forty years the great 

 promoter of philosophical pursuits ; and it may fairly 

 be said, that no one, either before or since his time, 

 ever occupied the high station in which he was placed 

 with such eminent advantage to the interests of the 

 scientific world. 



His own studies continued, as they always had been, 

 devoted to natural history ; and botany was the portion 

 of it which he chiefly loved to cultivate. He was, 

 perhaps, the most accomplished botanist of his day, 

 and among the very first in the other branches of 

 natural history. During the greater part of his life 

 his time and his fortune were assiduously bestowed on 

 the preparation of a magnificent series of botanical 

 drawings and engravings. But he never retained any 

 of these, as it were, locked up for his own gratification; 

 and his habitual indifference to literary fame made him 

 so slow to publish, that he is believed to have given 

 over to other cultivators of the same studies the fruits 

 of his own labour, as constantly as these fruits were 

 ripened and ready to be gathered in ; and while all 

 men's books were crowded with his designs, and all 

 men's inquiries promoted by the stores of his know- 

 ledge, he alone reaped no fame from his researches, 

 nor profited by the treasures which he had amassed, 

 except by the gratification of seeing them made sub- 

 servient to the progress of his favourite pursuits. 



A baronetcy had been bestowed on him in 

 1780, and in 1795 he was invested with the Order 

 of the Bath, a rare instance in those days of this 

 distinction being bestowed on any but a military or 

 a diplomatic person ; not, however, by any means the 

 first instance ; for Sir Kobert Atkins, the Chief Baron, 

 was also a Knight of the Order. In 1797, he was 

 made a Privy Councillor. He was chosen Kecorder 

 of Boston on the Duke of Ancaster's death. Though 

 often pressed to take a seat in Parliament, he always 

 declined. The favour which he enjoyed with George 



