THE SCOFFER ABROAD 175 



This spirit was characteristic of the times. But it is 

 greatly to be regretted that Walpole, who could produce 

 workmanlike and trustworthy records of the past and 

 many ingenious criticisms, seldom could write with dignity 

 about his co temporaries. 



The Scoffer was abroad, everywhere. No one, in any 

 stage of life, could escape him. Notoriety of any sort 

 was exposed to his wiles. Lampooning was the rage ; 

 and clever lampooners could make money of it. The 

 reader might have been spared needless allusion to this 

 sickening topic. Yet it would hardly be doing justice 

 to this interesting story were it altogether omitted ; 

 seeing that Banks, as has been shown, stood in the fiercest 

 glare of publicity. 



In point of fact, Banks proved an excellent target for 

 the shafts of caricature. He was well-born, and hob- 

 nobbed with sailors. He was a man of fortune, and reck- 

 lessly defied the conventions in the disposal of his income. 

 He was a personal friend of the King, a circumstance 

 fatal in its relation to the discontented spirits of the day. 

 His Presidency of the Royal Society was matter of ridi- 

 cule with a small section of his colleagues, on the ground 

 of his being no mathematician and certainly not another 

 Isaac Newton. This last grievance, by the way, endured 

 long after Banks's death. 1 And the little rift between 

 the naturalists and the mathematicians was always liable 

 to exposure. 



The earliest caricature of Banks was harmless enough. 



1 The Rev. Thomas John Hussey (astronomer) sends to Charles 

 Babbage, January, 1830, " half a dozen epigrams on a pair of Busts [in 

 the Society's HallJ, being a specimen of twelve dozen on the same 

 subject." One " specimen " will be enough for us : 



" I think I've seen these things look very small, 

 I've seen a mouse in honest Cluny's stall, 

 I've seen a flea upon a lion's hide, 

 And Banks's bust with Newton's side by side." 



(Addl, MSS., 37185/23.) 



