MAECENAS AND HIS HAPPENINGS 163 



(April 19, 1805.) ' 



"... I am sorry to learn that the clergy of Edinburgh, 

 a set of men hitherto honoured for their mild and moral 

 conduct as well as for the purity of their religious pro- 

 ceedings, have instituted what, in my humble opinion, 

 much resembles a persecution of you ; for tenets which, 

 if not strictly within their notions of orthodoxy, are 

 surely such as wise and well-informed men should not 

 select as proper objects of ecclesiastical censure. They 

 would surely have acted more properly, and in a manner 

 better becoming their station in the community, by 

 suffering your book to remain quietly on the philosopher's 

 shelf. . . . 



" Surely a man may fulfil his duty to his Creator 

 without assenting unconditionally to every undigested 

 tenet which our half-informed predecessors have left 

 behind as a legacy to their more enlightened posterity. 

 If it has pleased God to permit his creatures to increase 

 in wisdom, He will not condemn them for assenting to 

 new opinions which their reason demonstrates to be 

 just. . . ." 



It is clear, from all this, that Banks was now enjoying a 

 more than ordinary personal influence on his generation. 

 It is, likewise, pretty certain that this was due to the 

 development of a manly character in every sense of the 

 word : quite as much as to his scientific position. There 

 was another factor, however, which must not be forgotten 

 in completing the estimate. He was notoriously wealthy ; 

 and it was known everywhere that Sir Joseph was ready 

 to spend his money in a good cause. Hence a large addi- 

 tion to his responsibilities in the shape of what may be 

 called accidental claims upon his purse. 



Strange and wonderful efforts were made by various 

 sanguine persons to unloose those purse-strings. Few 



