VISIT TO ICELAND 37 



It is like the remembrance of a pleasing dream ; with 

 this difference, however, that it will not be transient/' 



There was a trip to Wales in the ensuing summer. 

 Banks went in company with Solander and Dr. Blagden. 

 Light foot joined them at Chester ; a most industrious 

 botanist was he, wandering many miles about England 

 in pursuit of his favourite study. He had been with 

 Pennant on his tour to Scotland in 1772, who made him 

 " happy in his company, and himself agreeable to 

 the several families who honoured me with their hospi- 

 tality." 



The fourth in this party was Charles Blagden, a young 

 Edinburgh physician, the junior of Banks by four or five 

 years, now at the beginning of a career as experimental 

 philosopher wliich brought him to some distinction. 1 

 Blagden presently became closely intimate with Banks, 

 and was one of his most assiduous correspondents during 

 periods of absence. When at Revesby in the summer 

 Banks was thus kept in touch with what was going on in 

 town. Early in 1776 Blagden was appointed physician 

 to the forces sent to America. He wrote to Bank's fre- 

 quently, sending abundance of botanical and ornitho- 

 logical notes, and observations on Natural Science ; 

 besides shrewd remarks on the progress of the war, 

 and the hospital concerns that filled his professional time. 

 The length of his letters was prodigious, sometimes 

 extending to eight or ten folio pages, about birds and 

 quadrupeds and fishes. He sent large collections in 

 Natural History to England, some for Daines Barrington 

 and some for Banks. The former handed over these 



1 " Talking of Dr. Blagden's copiousness and precision of com- 

 munication, Dr. Johnson said, ' Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow.' " 

 Croker's Boswell (1860), p. 663. 



This painstaking editor adds, from Hannah More's Memoirs, II, 98 : 

 " Doctor Blagden is so modest and so knowing that he exemplifies 

 Pope's line, ' Willing to teach, and yet too proud to know ' " (which is a 

 parody, of course, on " Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike "). 



