374 SIR JOSEPH BANKS. 



was, perhaps, the most accomplished botanist of his day, 

 and among the very first in the other branches of natural 

 history. During the greater part of his life his time and 

 his fortune were assiduously bestowed on the preparation 

 of a magnificent series of botanical drawings and en- 

 gravings. But he never retained any of these, as it were, 

 locked up for his own gratification ; and his habitual in- 

 difference to literary fame made him so slow to publish, 

 that he is believed to have as constantly given over to 

 other cultivators of the same studies the fruits of his own 

 labour, as these fruits were ripened and ready to be 

 gathered in; and while all men's books were crowded 

 with his designs, and all men's inquiries promoted by the 

 stores of his knowledge, he alone reaped no fame from 

 his researches, nor profited by the treasures which he had 

 amassed, except by the gratification of seeing them made 

 subservient to the progress of his favourite pursuits. 



A baronetcy had been bestowed on him in 1780, 

 and in 1 795 he was invested with the Order of the Bath ; 

 a rare instance in those days of this distinction being 

 bestowed on any but a military or a diplomatic person. 

 Not, however, by any means the first instance ; for Sir 

 Robert Atkins, the Chief Baron, was also a Knight of the 

 Order. In 1797, he was made a Privy Councillor. He 

 was chosen Recorder of Boston on the Duke of Ancas- 

 ter's death. Though often pressed to take a seat in 

 Parliament, he always declined. The favour which he 

 enjoyed with George III. was of long standing: that 

 Prince loved the manly frankness of his character, the 

 courage with which he had so often exposed himself to 

 danger in the pursuit of knowledge, and the firmness 

 with which his conduct was marked on all trying occasions. 

 Sir Joseph's political principles, too, those of a high tory, 



