SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 337 



splendid discovery would only have been found in the 

 memory of those who had heard his lectures ; his only 

 work being confined to the other discovery of fixed air, 

 and the nature of the alkaline earths. To take a yet 

 more remarkable instance; how little of Watt's great 

 and lasting fame depends on any written work which he 

 has left ! The like may be truly said of Arkwright ; 

 nay, the most important of inventions, the art of print- 

 ing, is disputed by two names, Coster and Guttenberg, 

 neither of whom is connected with the composition of 

 any literary work whatever. 



As men who have by their researches advanced the 

 bounds of science, " inventas aut qui vitam excoluerunt 

 per artes," may never have given any written works 

 to the world, and yet merit a high place among the 

 greatest philosophers, so may others who have filled 

 the less exalted but highly useful sphere of furthering 

 the progress of the sciences or the arts, deserve a 

 distinguished place among philosophers for the same 

 reason which entitles authors to such a station, although 

 they may never have contributed by any discoveries 

 to the advancement of the sciences which they culti- 

 vated. The excellent and eminent individual whose life 

 we are about to contemplate falls within this descrip- 

 tion; for although his active exertions for upwards of 

 half a century left traces most deeply marked in the 

 history of the natural sciences, and though his whole life 

 was given up to their pursuit, it so happened, that with 

 the exception of one or two tracts upon agricultural and 

 horticultural questions, he never gave any work of his 

 own composition to the world, nor left behind him 

 anything, beyond his extensive correspondence with other 



