8 The S^nithsonian Institution 



Keate (Macie), is described in the will of Penelope Keate, 

 grandmother of Smithson, in a bequest dated July 13, 1764, 

 as "my daughter, Elizabeth Macie, of Bath, widow," so that 

 at this time her husband was already dead. This fact, only 

 recently ascertained, is important in the estimate it leads us 

 to put on one of the principal actions of Smithson's life, his 

 taking of his father's name instead of that of Macie, by which 

 he was previously known. 



Something of the facts of the young man's birth were gen- 

 erally surmised, and we shall see that he was apparently not 

 allowed as a youth even to describe himself as Macie's son, a 

 thing to be remembered in connection with his subsequent 

 action in taking the name of Smithson.^ 



There has been found no record of the Macies at Weston 

 in the years preceding his birth ; there is no reference to him 

 in the accessible archives of the Northumberland family, nor 

 do we know more of the subsequent circumstances of his 

 mother than that she inherited the property of the Hunger- 

 fords of Studley in 1766, on the death of her brother, Lumley 

 Hungerford Keate, — a matter of interest as indicating the 

 probable source of a considerable portion of the Smithson 

 bequest. 



We have after this no knowledge of the founder of the In- 

 stitution until his name is entered in 1782 as James Lewis 

 Macie, a Gentleman Commoner, at Pembroke College, Ox- 

 ford, but entered in a way which, as the copy of the record 

 indicates, omitted the prescribed form of stating the name of 

 the father, which others were obliged to comply with. 



He was at this time but a lad, and as we are assured only 



lln 1880, when Mr. Rhees's memoir was the married life of Mr. and Mrs. Macie, and 



prepared, the dateofSmithson'sbirth.obtained put a less favorable construction on young 



from an erroneous inscription on his tomb, Macie's action in taking the name of Smithson 



was 1754, which would have placed it eleven from that it bears, under the circumstances 



years earlier than the actual event, during which are now for the first time detailed. 



