74 MEMOIR or dr wright. 



racter, his liberal disposition, and enlightened views, 

 are strongly reflected in the interesting volume of 

 letters, which, during these eight years, were address- 

 ed to him by his youthful correspondent. 



Early in the spring of 1786, Dr Wright pro- 

 ceeded northward. He arrived in Edinburgh in 

 the month of March, and the greater part of the 

 following summer he devoted to his friends in 

 Perthshire. In the autumn of this year, a vacan- 

 cy occurred in the Botanical Chair of the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh, by the death of his friend Dr 

 Hope. On his arrival in Edinburgh some time 

 afterwards, from a tour, he was surprised to find 

 that the zeal of several of his friends had induced 

 them to put him in nomination as a candidate for 

 the vacant chair, from the general knowledge they 

 possessed of his distinguished attainments in this 

 department of science, and from the perseverance 

 with which he was known to have pursued the stu- 

 dy of botany in the New World as well as in the 

 Old. But as soon as he found that his friend Dr 

 Rutherford had also been put in nomination, he 

 at once resolved to forego all pretensions to the ap- 

 pointment. By this promptitude of purpose, he not 

 only avoided the evils of a contested election, but 

 secured a basis of general good will, on which many 

 valuable friendships were raised during his subse- 

 quent residence in Edinburgh. 



Dr Wright had long maintained a correspond- 

 ence, on literary and scientific subjects, with indivi- 

 dual members of the American Philosophical Socie- 



