SCIENCE NOT RECOGNISED. 101 



their chief solace, heightened by a pleasant intercourse 

 with men who, like themselves, could dine cheerily at 

 a tavern for half-a-crown a-head, or on haddocks, 

 potatoes, and whisky-toddy at home — even without 

 the patevnum salinum* 



" Vivitur parvo bene, cui paternum 

 Splendet in mensa tenui salinum ; 

 Nee leves somnos timor aut cupido 

 Sordidus aufert." 



England, with all her Eeform Bills, had not come to 

 recognise science, however ably and earnestly culti- 

 vated by her sons. Thus Harry Goodsir went out 

 with Sir John Franklin to the Polar Seas in 1845, not 

 in the capacity to which everybody knew he was cre- 

 dited, and for which not a dozen persons could be found 

 in Britain so well suited, but ostensibly as assistant 

 surgeoiij whose duties could have been discharged 

 equally well by hundreds of men. The Government 

 were afraid to speak of a paid naturalist ! With such 

 an example at headquarters, the Universities pleaded 

 poverty for their non-recognition of science ; and to 

 descend lower, neither the tribunes nor the people 

 afforded encouragement to the pursuit of natural 

 history. Forbes might well record — "The mass bestow 

 more kicks than halfpence on science." 



The Goodsirs were nol without the silver emblems of success in medical 

 practice, and a very handsome cup presented to the patriarch "John" 

 betokened the high esteem in which he was held by grateful patients. The 

 "horned lantern," however, carried by "Grandfather John" to light up the 

 dark paths of Fife, was quit oificanl an heir-loom of the ' toodsirs, and it 

 it 1 "I, the mantelpiece in Lothian Stre< I as a balance to a quaint Manx tan- 

 kard I'" dblj the heir I I Edward Foi 



