SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 343 



collection of plants: what the object of the particular 

 voyage might be I am not informed. On his return 

 to England by way of Lisbon, early in 1767, he re- 

 sumed, or rather continued, his studies in botany and 

 natural history ; and the intimacy which he formed with 

 Dr. Solander, a favourite pupil of Linnaeus, now settled 

 at the British Museum as Assistant-Librarian, greatly 

 facilitated his application to these pursuits. 



The commencement of George the Third's reign was 

 distinguished most honourably, both for the Sovereign 

 and for his favourite minister, Lord Bute, by an extra- 

 ordinary regard for the interests of science. That dis- 

 tinguished person, the victim of much popular prejudice 

 and misrepresentation, formed a rare exception to most 

 statesmen who have governed this country, for he was 

 fond of philosophical studies, and was a successful as well 

 as a diligent cultivator of some of the sciences. Accord- 

 ingly, the patronage of the Crown was extended to 

 others who had like tastes, and it was most judiciously 

 employed in promoting the discovery of distant regions not 

 before explored by the adventurous spirit of navigators. 

 Captain Wallis had recently brought us acquainted with 

 some of the more remarkable groups of islands which 

 stud one portion of the Pacific Ocean; and it was 

 resolved to promote these discoveries, for the advance- 

 ment of natural science, without any views of conquest. 

 In 1676 Halley, while residing at the Island of St. He- 

 lena, had made an important observation on the transit 

 of Mercury over the sun's disc. But he had bequeathed 

 to astronomers a far more important recommendation, to 

 mark the transit of Venus, an event of much more rare 

 occurrence, and which he could not hope to see, as it 



