372 SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 



its success, if not its origin, to him. The British 

 Museum was a constant object of his anxious care, and 

 during the forty-two years of his official trusteeship he 

 paid unremitting attention to its concerns, and largely 

 endowed it with presents ; he bequeathed to it his 

 noble library and all his principal collections. 



I have already said that his published works bore no 

 proportion either to his scientific labours or his exer- 

 tions in behalf of learned men. They consisted only 

 of some tracts on agricultural and horticultural sub- 

 jects, as the mildew in wheat, and Merino sheep on 

 Indian and spring wheat on the Spanish chesnut on 

 Roman forcing-houses and some others. 



For the last thirty years of his life, Sir Joseph 

 Banks suffered frequently and severely from gout; 

 and during the last fourteen years he was so much a 

 martyr to it, that he could take no exercise on foot. 

 He tried various expedients to lessen the violence of 

 the attacks, such as giving up the use of fermented 

 liquors, and abstaining entirely from animal food ; but 

 if the fits were less severe, their recurrence was more 

 frequent. Small doses of Husson's medicine were lat- 

 terly resorted to with considerable effect ; and with 

 his wonted sagacity and firmness he met the objections 

 of those who urged how certain the tendency of that 

 cure was to shorten life, by asking " how many years 

 they supposed he could hope to live if he took none 

 of it ?" At last he gradually sank under the exhaust- 

 ing effects of this ailment, after having for a consi- 

 derable length of time entirely lost the use of his lower 

 limbs. He died at his villa of Spring Grove, Houns- 

 low, 19th June, 1820, in the seventy-eighth year of his 

 age, after suffering with the greatest cheerfulness for 

 many years the pains of this tormenting malady, and 

 its debilitating effects, much more intolerable to one 

 of his active habits and strong animal spirits. 



The directions of his will were characteristic of his 

 tastes as a lover of science, and its provisions truly 



