BANKS'S JOUENAL 318 



handed over. Dawson Turner had the whole carefully tran- 

 scribed by his two daughters. Of this Hooker writes in his 

 Preface to the book : 



It was when on a visit to my grandfather in 1833 that 

 I first saw the original Journal in Banks' handwriting. It 

 was then being copied, and I was employed to verify the 

 copies of the earlier part by comparison with the original. 

 I well remember being as a boy fascinated with the Journal, 

 and I never ceased to hope that it might one day be 

 published. 



But Dawson Turner did no more, and original and copies 

 were returned to Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen 1 (afterwards Lord 

 Brabourne), and for many years rested in the Manuscript De- 

 partment of the British Museum, to become the property of the 

 Trustees after the death of Lady Knatchbull. During one of 

 the periodical attempts to have the Life of Banks written, the 

 transcripts were transferred for examination to the Botanical 

 Department, and were thus saved when in the middle eighties 

 Lord Brabourne refused to accept the view of the Museum 

 authorities as to the ultimate -.property in the MSS., and carried 

 off the box containing the originals. Later he offered these for 

 sale to the Museum, but being dissatisfied with the price offered, 

 had them sold by auction at Sotheby's, lock, stock and barrel. 

 The result was pitiful. The 207 lots into which the Journal and 

 correspondence were broken up, realised but 182 19s., and a 

 collection, the peculiar value of which lay in its being preserved 

 entire, was scattered to the winds. Letters with well-known 

 signatures were resold as autographs, the rest destroyed. 

 One large portion of the Journal was afterwards traced to 

 Sydney, an appropriate resting-place. But the full material 

 on which Hooker worked was the salvage of his own family's 

 labour, taken from the very papers upon which he himself 

 had worked as a boy, sixty-three years before. 



In a Journal such as this, posted up from day to day, there 



1 Edward Knatchbull-Hugessen, first Baron Brabourne (1829-93), M.A. 



1854, who took the surname of Hugessen 1849, was M.P. for Sandwich 1857 ; 



Lord of the Treasury 1859-66, etc. j privy councillor 1873 ; and raised to the 



peerage 1880. He was the author of a charming volume of children's stories. 



VOL. n x 



