SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 34 J 



but so much time was thus lost, that it was thought 

 better he should not return to school ; and immediately 

 before he completed his eighteenth year, he was sent to 

 Oxford, and entered a gentleman commoner of Christ 

 Church. His love of natural history now increased with 

 the increased means and greater leisure for gratifying it. 

 Botany, however, continued to be his favourite branch of 

 that science ; and he found that unfortunately no lectures 

 were given by Dr. Sibthorp, the botanical professor. In 

 this difficulty, he applied to the learned doctor for leave 

 to engage a lecturer, whose remuneration should be 

 wholly defrayed by his pupils ; and it is highly creditable 

 to the professor, and shows his love of the science, in 

 which some of his family afterwards so greatly excelled, 

 that he at once agreed to the proposal. Mr. Banks then 

 finding no one at Oxford capable of undertaking the 

 class, went over to Cambridge, whence he brought back 

 with him Mr. Israel Lyon, a learned botanist, and good 

 astronomer, who was then engaged in teaching these 

 two sciences to private pupils. The friendship of Mr. 

 Banks afterwards obtained for him the appointment of 

 astronomer to Captain Phipps on his Polar voyage. Mr. 

 Lyon gave lectures and lessons to the young men who 

 had joined in this very laudable scheme, and Mr. Banks, 

 as might be expected, profited exceedingly by those 

 instructions. Among true Oxonians, of course, he stood 

 low. He used to tell in after-life, that when he entered 

 any of the rooms where discussions on classical points 

 were going briskly on, they would say, " Here is Banks, 

 but he knows nothing of Greek." He made no reply, 

 but he would say to himself, " I shall very soon beat you 

 all in a kind of knowledge I think infinitely more im- 



