president’s address. 
679 
days later, March 17th, 1828. He was interred in the Reeve 
vault in the churchyard of St. Margaret's, Lowestoft. 
When Sir James Smith died, the Linnean treasures were 
still at his house in Surrey street. “ It was hoped that the 
President would bequeath his collections to the society which 
he had founded, inasmuch as he had no family. By his will 
he directed that his collections, with certain reservations, 
should be offered to the society for /"5,000. After long 
consideration the society was about to decline the offer, -when 
the executor reduced his terms to 3,000 guineas, which offer 
was accepted.* The purchase was effected by selling the 
whole of the invested funds, by a subscription of £"1,193, and 
by raising ,£"1,150 by bonds at 5 per cent. The debt thus 
created acted prejudicially in many ways, and was not finally 
extinguished till 1861 ; the first portion of the present invest- 
ments dates from 1859, when £"300 of Consols were bought. 
The annual rent which had to be paid also diminished the sum 
available for scientific purposes.” It was not till 1857 that a 
suite of rooms, now occupied by the Royal Academy of Arts, 
was granted for the use of the society, rent free. In 1873 the 
society moved to its present quarters in Burlington House. 12 
In 1832 Lady Smith edited the “ Memoir and Correspondence” 
of the late Sir James Smith, in two volumes. She was assisted 
by Mr. Dawson Turner, F.R.S., in the selection of the foreign 
letters thus published. Of the 5,000 letters which Sir James 
had preserved, the more important ones were bound in nineteen 
large volumes, and two years later (in 1857) Lady Smith 
presented them, together with a quantity of unbound letters, 
to the Linnean Society. In the preface to Vol. 1 of these 
MS. letters, she says : — “ A most gratifying testimony to the 
character of the late President may be mentioned, that he 
never lost a friend or correspondent of any value, but by 
death, and many of their interchanges of friendship were 
perpetuated through a long series of years It was 
*The proceeds of the sale of Sir James Smith’s collections were left to his 
wife for her life, and at her death to be divided among his nephews and nieces 
or their representatives.^ 
