MEMOIK Ol DR WRIGHT. 43 



tion to classes of society, to the enjoyment ofwhich 

 it is no mean ambition to aspire. He writes with rap- 

 ture of the weekly conferences at the house of Sir John 

 Pringle — those nodes canaeque deum, — at which 

 he had often the happiness to assist ; and there is no 

 limit to the enthusiasm with which he expatiates on the 

 celebrated collection of Mr Banks, to which he had 

 the satisfaction of adding several hundreds of speci- 

 mens. Among his personal friends, he had the plea- 

 sure of ranking ])r Fothergill and Dr William 

 Pitc aiiin, two distinguished collectors, between whom 

 there subsisted an honourable and friendly rivalship, 

 to the amusement of their contemporaries, and the 

 benefit of science, for priority and precedence in the 

 number and the rarity of their acquisitions. 



In such circles, the company of Dr Wright was 

 courted, from the ample store of information he pos- 

 sessed, and from the talent for conversation which en- 

 abled him to make his knowledge at all times available, 

 independent of the rich collection of exotics which he 

 brought with him to Europe, and the liberality with 

 which he shared his riches with his numerous friends. 



Soon after his arrival in London, he was induced to 

 submit a memoir to the Royal Society, at that time un- 

 der the presidency of Sir John Pringle, on the sub- 

 ject of tlie cabbage-bark tree of Jamaica, which was pub- 

 lished with illustrative engravings, in the Philosophical 

 Transactions for 1778. Ostensibly as an acknowledge- 

 ment for this communication, but rather, as he inclin- 

 ed to regard it, in testimony of the friendship of Aii 

 Banks, and the other magnates of the aristocracy of 

 letters, he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society. 



