2 JAMES SMITIISON AND HIS BEQUEST. 



The possession by the first Duke of Northumberland of titles and dig- 

 nities only inferior to those of royalty was of little consequence to his 

 son James Smithson. Deprived by the bar sinister on his escutcheon 

 from claiming the family name and honors, he nevertheless aspired to win 

 a fame more universal and lasting than these could have bestowed upon 

 him. lie devoted himself to original research in the field of science, and 

 sought to be known and honored by his fellow-men as a discoverer of 

 new truths. Moreover, he resolved to attach his name to an institution 

 unique in its character, noble in its object, and universal in its benefi- 

 cence, of which John Quincy Adams has well said, "Of all the founda- 

 tions of establishments for pious or charitable uses which ever signalized 

 the spirit of the age or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder, 

 none can be named more deserving of the approbation of mankind." 



Smitlison's feeling in regard to posthumous fame was strikingly ex- 

 pressed in the following sentence found in one of his manuscripts. 



"The best blood of England flows in my veins; on my father's side I 

 am a Northumherland, on my mother's I am related to kings, but this 

 avails me not. My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles 

 of the Northumberlands and the Percys are extinct and forgotten." 



As Prof. W. R. Johnson has well observed in speaking of Smithson : 

 "The man of science is willing to rest on the basis of his own labors 

 alone for his credit with mankind, and his fame with future generations. 

 In the view of such a man, the accidents of birth, of fortune, of local 

 habitation, and conventional rank in the artificial organization of society, 

 all sink into insignificance by the side of a single truth of nature. If 

 he have contributed his mite to the increase of knowledge ; if he have 

 diffused that knowledge for the benefit of man, and above all, if he have 

 applied it to the useful, or even to the ornamental purposes of life, he 

 has laid not his family, not his country, but the world of mankind under 

 a lasting obligation." 



The eloquent words of John Quincy Adams in reference to the fame 

 to be conferred on Smithson by the successful accomplishment of the 

 great design he had in view by his bequest are appropriate in this con- 

 nection. 



"The father of the testator upon forming his alliance with the heiress 

 of the family of the Percys, assumed, by an act of the British Parliament, 

 that name, and, under it," became Duke of Northumberland. But re- 

 nowned as is the name of Percy in the historical annals of England ; 

 resounding as it does fiom the summit of the Cheviot Hills to the ears 

 of our children in the ballad of Chevy Chace, with the classical com- 

 mentary of Addison; freshened and renovated in our memory as it has 

 recently been from the purest fountain of poetical inspiration in the loft- 

 ier strain of Alnwick Castle, tuned by a bard from our own native land 

 (Fitz Greene Halleck) ; doubly immortalized as it is in the deathless 

 dramas of Shakspeare ; ' confident against the world in arms,' as it may 

 have been in ages long past and may still be in the virtues of its present 



