The Life of Sir Joseph Banks: President of the Royal Society, with Some Notices of His Friends and Contemporaries

Front Cover
John Lane, 1911 - Science - 348 pages

From inside the book

Contents

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 155 - And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men ; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol : and his fame was in all nations round about.
Page 49 - Rome decreed the civic crown to him who saved the life of a single citizen, what wreaths are due to that man, who, having himself saved many, perpetuates in your transactions the means by which Britain may now, on the most distant voyages, preserve numbers of her intrepid sons, her mariners ; who, braving every danger, have so liberally contributed to the fame, to the opulence, and to the maritime empire of their country."* * Sir John Pringle's Six Discourses, p.
Page 59 - The business and design of the Royal Society is — " To improve the knowledge of naturall things, and all useful Arts, Manufactures, Mechanick practises, Engynes and Inventions by Experiments — (not meddling with Divinity, Metaphysics, Moralls, Politicks, Grammar, Rhetorick, or Logick).
Page 146 - Banks, who told him, knowing his temper, that he believed he could recommend him to an adventure almost as perilous as the one from which he had returned; and then communicated to him...
Page 200 - I think would be imprudent and might be attended with disagreeable circumstances, besides as amidst other branches of natural history I have not neglected the study of the animal called woman, I have found them subject to great changes according to circumstances, and I do not like to try experiments at my time of life.
Page 326 - Society that his motive for offering his resignation of the office of President was a conviction that old age had so far impaired his sight and his hearing as to render him by no means so well able to perform...
Page 258 - ... short, trying to amuse me. I recollect she took me to a Lord Mayor's ball, where I saw the princes and royal family for the first time. As may be supposed, the select dinners of the Royal Society were highly interesting, and where, I think, ladies were seldom or never admitted. I was allowed to accompany Lady and Miss Banks as a mere nobody ; but this did not prevent my making observations which never have been and never will be forgotten.
Page 26 - Some cross circumstances which happened at the latter part of the equipment of the ' Resolution' created, I have reason to think, a coolness betwixt you and I ; but I can by no means think it was sufficient to me to break off all correspondence with a man I am under many obligations to.
Page 91 - To give more liveliness to the scene, the President proposed the health of the Prince of Wales: this was his birthday. We then drank to the Elector Palatine, who was that day to be admitted into the Royal Society. The same compliment was next paid to us foreigners of whom there were five present.
Page 195 - Due d'Harcourt as a present to the Queen, the whole of the business relating to those things has taken a very different turn. I sincerely hope it will not be productive of any disappointment to Her Majesty, and I feel it my duty to do all in my power to obviate as much as I am able all possibility of that being the case. When the Collection was offered to the Queen, it was supposed by all who were concerned in making the offer that it belonged to the present King of France, and it was believed that...

Bibliographic information