Part 22

The pulmonary circulation had been surmised by Galen, and maintained by his successors; but no proof even of this insulated portion of the truth, more than amounted to strong probability, had been given till the time of Harvey; and no plausible claim to the discovery, still less to the demonstration, of the general circulation has ever been set up in opposition to his. Indeed its truth was quite inconsistent with the ideas everywhere entertained in the schools on the functions of the heart and other viscera, and was destructive of many favourite theories. The new doctrine, therefore, as may well be supposed, was received by most of the anatomists of the period with distrust, and by all with surprise. Some of them undertook to refute it; but their objections turned principally on the silence of Galen, or consisted of the most frivolous cavils: the controversy, too, assumed the form of personal abuse even more speedily than is usually the case when authority is at issue with reason. To such opposition Harvey for some time did not think it necessary to reply; but some of his friends in England, and of the adherents to his doctrine on the Continent, warmly took up his defence. At length he was induced to take a personal share in the dispute in answer to Riolanus, a Parisian anatomist of some celebrity, whose objections were distinguished by some show of philosophy, and unusual abstinence from abuse. The answer was conciliatory and complete, but ineffectual to produce conviction; and in reply to Harvey’s appeal to direct experiment, his opponent urged nothing but conjecture and assertion. Harvey once more rejoined at considerable length; taking occasion to give a spirited rebuke to the unworthy reception he had met with, in which it seems that Riolanus had now permitted himself to join; adducing several new and conclusive experiments in support of his theory; and entering at large upon its value in simplifying physiology and the study of diseases, with other interesting collateral topics. Riolanus, however, still remained unconvinced; and his second rejoinder was treated by Harvey with contemptuous silence. He had already exhausted the subject in the two excellent controversial pieces just mentioned, the last of which is said to have been written at Oxford about 1545; and he never resumed the discussion in print. Time had now come to the assistance of argument, and his discovery began to be generally admitted. To this indeed his opponents contributed by a still more singular discovery of their own, namely, that the facts had been observed, and the important inference drawn long before. This was the mere allegation of envy, chafed at the achievements of another, which, from their apparent facility, might have been its own. It is indeed strange that the simple mechanism thus explained should have been unobserved or misunderstood so long; and nothing can account for it but the imperceptible lightness as well as the strength of the chains which authority imposes on the mind.

In the year 1623 Harvey became Physician Extraordinary to James I., and seven years later was appointed Physician to Charles. He followed the fortunes of that monarch, who treated him with great distinction, during the first years of the civil war, and he was present at the battle of Edgehill in 1642. Having been incorporated Doctor of Physic by the University of Oxford, he was promoted by Charles to the Wardenship of Merton College in 1645; but he did not retain this office very long, his predecessor Dr. Brent being reinstated by the parliament after the surrender of Oxford in the following year.

Harvey then returned to London and resided with his brother Eliab at Cockaine-house in the Poultry. About the time of Charles’s execution he gave up his practice, which had never been considerable, probably in consequence of his devotion to the scientific, rather than the practical parts of his profession. He himself, however, attributed his want of success to the enmity excited by his discovery. After a second visit to the Continent, he secluded himself in the country, sometimes at his own house in Lambeth, and sometimes with his brother Eliab at Combe in Surrey. Here he was visited by his friend Dr. Ent in 1651, by whom he was persuaded to allow the publication of his work on the Generation of Animals. It was the fruit of many years of experiment and meditation; and though the vehicle of no remarkable discovery, is replete with interest and research, and contains passages of brilliant and even poetical eloquence. The object of his work is to trace the germ through all its changes to the period of maturity; and the illustrations are principally drawn from the phenomena exhibited by eggs in the process of incubation, which he watched with great care, and has described with minuteness and fidelity. The microscope had not at that time the perfection it has since attained; and consequently Harvey’s account of the first appearance of the chick is somewhat inaccurate, and has been superseded by the observations of Malpighi, Hunter, and others. The experiments upon which he chiefly relied in this department of natural history had been repeated in the presence of Charles I., who appears to have taken great interest in the studies of his physician.

In the year 1653, the seventy-fifth of his life, Harvey presented the College of Physicians with the title-deeds of a building erected in their garden, and elegantly fitted up at his expense, with a library and museum, and commodious apartments for their social meetings. Upon this occasion he resigned the Professorship of Anatomy, which he had held for nearly forty years, and was succeeded by Dr. Glisson.

In 1654 he was elected to the Presidency of the College, which he declined on the plea of age; and the former President, Sir Francis Prujean, was re-elected at his request. Two years afterwards he made a donation to the college of a part of his patrimonial estate to the yearly value of £56, as a provision for the maintenance of the library and an annual festival and oration in commemoration of benefactors.

At length his constitution, which had long been harassed by the gout, yielded to the increasing infirmities of age, and he died in his eightieth year, on the 3d of June, 1657. He was buried at Hempstead in Essex, in a vault belonging to his brother Eliab, who was his principal heir, and his remains were followed to the grave by a numerous procession of the body of which he had been so illustrious and munificent a member.

The best edition of his works is that edited by the College of Physicians in 1766, to which is prefixed a valuable notice of his life, and an account of the controversy to which his discovery of the circulation gave rise. All that remain of his writings in addition to those which have been already mentioned, are an account of the dissection of Thomas Parr, who died at the age of 153, and a few letters addressed to various Continental anatomists. His lodgings at Whitehall had been plundered in the early part of the civil war, of many papers containing manuscript notes of experiments and observations, chiefly relating to comparative anatomy. This was a loss which he always continued to lament. The missing papers have never been recovered.

In person he was below the middle size, but well-proportioned. He had a dark complexion, black hair, and small lively eyes. In his youth his temper is said to have been very hasty. If so he was cured of this defect as he grew older; for nothing can be more courteous and temperate than his controversial writings, and the genuine kindness and modesty which were conspicuous in all his dealings with others, with his instructive conversation, gained him many attached and excellent friends. He was fond of meditation and retirement; and there is much in his works to characterize him as a man of warm and unaffected piety.

There are several histories of his life; a very elegant one has lately been published in a volume of the Family Library, entitled ‘Lives of British Physicians.’

[Illustration:

_Engraved by C. E. Wagstaff._

SIR J. BANKS.

_From a Picture by J. Phillips, in the possession of the Royal Society._

Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.

_London. Published by Charles Knight, Pall Mall East._ ]

[Illustration]

BANKS

Posterity is likely to do scanty justice to the merits of Banks, when the grateful recollections of his contemporaries shall have passed away. His name is connected with no great discovery, no striking improvement; and he has left no literary works from which the extent of his industry, or the amount of his knowledge can be estimated. Yet he did much for the cause of science; much by his personal exertions, more by a judicious and liberal use of the advantages of fortune. For more than half a century a zealous and successful student of natural history in general, and particularly of botany, the history of his scientific life is to be found in the records of science during that long and active period. We shall not attempt to compress so intricate and extensive a subject within the brief limits of three or four pages; but confine ourselves to a short sketch of his character and personal adventures. Some fitting person will, it is to be hoped, ere too late, undertake to write the life of our distinguished countryman upon a scale calculated to do justice to his merits: at present this task is not only unperformed, but unattempted.

Joseph Banks was born in London, February 13, 1743. Of his childhood we find few memorials. He passed through the ordinary routine of education; having been first committed to the care of a private tutor at home, then placed at Harrow, afterwards at Eton, and finally sent to complete his studies at Christchurch, Oxford. Born to the inheritance of an ample fortune, and left an orphan at the age of eighteen, it is no small praise that he was not allured by the combined temptations of youth, wealth, and freedom, to seek his happiness in vicious, or even idle pleasures. Science, in one of its most attractive branches, the study of animated nature, was his amusement as a schoolboy, and the favourite pursuit of his mature years: and he was rewarded for his devotion, not merely in the rank and estimation which he obtained by its means, but also in his immunity from the dangers which society throws in the way of those who have the means of gratifying their own passions, and the vanities and interests of their friends.

He quitted the university in the year 1763. In 1766 he gave a proof of his zeal for knowledge by engaging in a voyage to Newfoundland. He was induced to choose that most unattractive region, by having the opportunity of accompanying a friend, Lieutenant Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, well known as a navigator of the Polar Seas, who was sent out in a ship of war to protect the fisheries. Soon after his return a much more interesting and important field of inquiry was opened to him by the progress of discovery in the southern hemisphere. In 1764 Commodore Byron, in 1766 Captains Wallis and Carteret were sent into the South Sea, to investigate the geography of that immense and then unfrequented region. These expeditions were succeeded in 1768 by another under the command of Captain Cook, who first obtained celebrity as a navigator upon this occasion. Lord Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty, possessed an estate in Lincolnshire on the borders of Whittlesea Mere. Mr. Banks’s chief property lay in the same neighbourhood: and it so chanced that similarity of tastes, and especially a common predilection for all aquatic amusements, had produced a great intimacy between the statesman and his young country neighbour. To this fortunate circumstance it may probably be ascribed, that on Mr. Banks expressing a wish to accompany the projected expedition, his desire was immediately granted. His preparations were made on the most liberal scale. He laid in an ample store of such articles as would be useful or acceptable to the savage tribes whom he was about to visit: and besides the usual philosophical apparatus of a voyage of discovery, he engaged two draughtsmen to make accurate representations of such objects as could not be preserved, or conveyed to England; and he secured the services of Dr. Solander, a Swedish naturalist, a pupil of Linnæus, who had previously been placed on the establishment of the British Museum. The history of this voyage belongs to the life of Cook. The expedition bent its course for the Southern Ocean, through the Straits of Le Maire, at the southern end of America. Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander landed on the desolate island of Terra del Fuego, where the severity of the cold had very nearly proved fatal to several of their party. Dr. Solander in

## particular was so entirely overcome by the drowsiness consequent on

extreme cold and exhaustion, that it was with great difficulty, and by the unwearied exertion and resolution of his more robust companion, that he was prevented from falling into that sleep which is the forerunner of death. Their farther course lay through the islands of the Pacific Ocean to Otaheite, which had been selected as a fitting place for the main object of the voyage, the observing of the passage of Venus over the sun’s disk. At that island their stay was consequently prolonged for several months, during which the Europeans and the natives mingled together, generally on the most friendly terms. In this intercourse Mr. Banks took a very leading part. His liberality, and the high station which he evidently held among the strangers, conciliated the attachment and respect of the unpolished islanders: and the mingled suavity and firmness of his temper and demeanour rendered him singularly fitted both to protect the weaker party from the occasional wantonness or presumption of their visitors, and to check their knavery, and obtain satisfaction for the thefts which they not unfrequently committed. Once the astronomical purposes of the navigators were nearly frustrated by the loss of the large brass quadrant; and the recovery of this important instrument was chiefly due to the exertions and influence of Mr. Banks. Both hemispheres owe to him a tribute of gratitude; for while he gave the savages the improved tools, the esculent vegetables, and the domesticated animals of Europe, his exertions led to the introduction of the breadfruit, and of the productive sugar-cane peculiar to Otaheite, into our West-India colonies.

After the lapse of three years the voyagers returned home, and were received with lively interest by all classes of society. Part of their collections were lost through an accident which happened to the vessel: but the greater portion was preserved, and their novelty and beauty excited the admiration of naturalists. George III., who delighted in everything connected with horticulture and farming, manifested a warm interest in inquiring into the results of the expedition, and conceived a liking for the young traveller, which continued unimpaired even to the close of his public life.

It was Mr. Banks’s intention to accompany Captain Cook in his second voyage, in 1772: but the Navy Board showed no willingness to provide that accommodation which the extent of his preparations and the number of his scientific followers required, and he gave up the project, which indeed he could not satisfactorily execute. In the summer of that year he went to Iceland. Passing along the western coast of Scotland, he was led to visit Staffa, in consequence of local information; and to his description that singular island was first indebted for its general celebrity. He spent a month in Iceland. An account of this visit has been published by M. Von Troil, a Swedish clergyman, who formed one of the party. On this, as on other occasions, Mr. Banks, unwearied in quest of knowledge, seemed careless of the fame to which most would have aspired as the reward of their labours. Of none of his travels has he himself given any account in a separate publication; indeed, a few papers in the Horticultural Transactions, and a very curious account of the causes of mildew in corn, not printed for sale, constitute the mass of his published works. But his visit was productive of much good to the Icelanders, though it remained uncommemorated in expensive quartos. He watched over their welfare, when their communication with Denmark was interrupted by war between that country and England; and twice sent cargoes of corn, at his own expense, to relieve their sufferings in seasons of scarcity. His benevolence was warmly acknowledged by the Danish Court.

Returning to England, Mr. Banks, at the early age of thirty, entered on that tranquil and useful course of life, from which during a long series of years he never deviated. His thirst for travel was checked or satiated; he undertook no more distant expeditions, but he ceased not to cultivate the sciences, for which he had undergone so many hardships. It was long hoped that he would publish some account of the rich harvest of vegetable productions which he had collected in the unknown regions of the Pacific; and for this purpose it was known that he had caused a very large number of plates to be engraved at a great expense: but, most probably owing to the death of Solander, these have never been given to the world. But if he hesitated to communicate himself to the public the results of his labours, in amends his museum and his library were placed most freely at the command of those who sought, and were able to profit by his assistance; and to these sources many splendid works, especially on botany, have mainly owed their merits, and perhaps their existence.

From the period of his return from Iceland Mr. Banks took an active part in the affairs of the Royal Society. His house was constantly open to men of science, whether British or foreign, and by the urbanity of his manners, and his liberal use of the advantages of fortune, he acquired that popularity which six years afterwards led to his election as President of that distinguished body. Two or three years afterwards a dangerous schism had nearly arisen in the Society, chiefly in consequence of the unreasonable anger of a party of mathematicians, headed by Dr. Horsley, afterwards Bishop of St. David’s, who looked with contempt on sciences unsusceptible of mathematical proof, and loudly exclaimed against the chair of Newton being filled, as they phrased it, by an amateur. It would be little profitable to rake up the embers of an ancient and unworthy feud. We shall only state therefore that Banks was elected in November, 1778; that for some time a violent opposition was raised against him; and that in January, 1784, the Society, by a formal resolution, declared itself satisfied with the choice which it had made. Horsley and a few others seceded, and for the rest of his life Banks continued the undisputed and popular president; a period of forty-one years from the epoch of his election.

We have said that at an early age Mr. Banks was fortunate in gaining the royal favour; marks of which were not wanting. In 1781 he was created a baronet; in 1795 he received the Order of the Bath, then very rarely bestowed upon civilians and commoners; and in 1797 he was made a Privy Councillor. The friendship between the King and the subject was cemented by similarity of pursuits; for the latter was a practical farmer as well as a philosopher, and under his care the value of his estates in Lincolnshire was considerably increased by improvements in the drainage of that singular country, in the direction of which Sir Joseph took an

## active part. He is said to have possessed such influence over the King’s

mind, that ministers sometimes availed themselves of it to recommend a measure unpalatable to their honest but somewhat obstinate master. We know not whether this be better founded than most other stories of back-stairs influence, easily thrown out and difficult to be refuted: it is at least certain that if Banks possessed such power, he deserves great credit for the singular moderation with which he used it. For himself he asked and received nothing: fortunately his station in society was one which renders disinterestedness an easy, if not a common virtue. His influence was directed to facilitate scientific undertakings, to soften to men of science the inconveniences of the long war of the Revolution, to procure the restoration of their papers and collections when taken by an enemy, or the alleviation of their sufferings in captivity. The French were especially indebted to him for such services. It is said by an eminent member of the Institute, in his Eloge upon Banks, that no less than ten times, collections addressed to the Jardin du Roi at Paris, and captured by the English, were restored by his intercession to their original destination. He thought that national hostility should find no entrance among followers of science; and the delicacy of his views on this subject is well displayed in a letter written on one of these occasions to Jussieu, where he says that he would on no account rob of a single botanical idea a man who had gone to seek them at the peril of his life. In 1802 the National Institute of France, being then re-modelled, elected him at the head of their Foreign Associates, whose number was limited to eight. Cavendish, Maskelyne, and Herschel were also members of this distinguished list. In replying to the letter which announced this honour, Sir Joseph Banks expressed his gratitude in terms which gave offence to some members of that distinguished Society over which he himself presided. This exposed him to a virulent attack from an anonymous enemy, who published the letter in question in the English papers, accompanied by a most acrimonious address to the author of it; prompted, it is evident, not so much by a reasonable and patriotic jealousy, as by ancient pique, and a bitter detestation even of the science of revolutionary France.

Towards the close of life Sir Joseph Banks, who in youth had possessed a robust constitution, and a dignified and prepossessing figure, was grievously afflicted by gout. He endured the sufferings of disease with patience and cheerfulness, and died May 19, 1820, leaving no children. Lady Banks, whom he had married in 1779, survived him several years. His magnificent library he devised to the British Museum; and among other bequests for scientific purposes, he left an annuity to Mr. Frederic Bauer, an artist whom he had long employed in making botanical drawings from the garden at Kew, upon condition that he should continue the series.

[Illustration: Banksia ericifolia.]

END OF VOL. I.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Changed “he had a numerous offspring” to “he had numerous offspring” on p. 3. 2. Changed “campaigns bolder style” to “campaigns a bolder style” on p. 70. 3. Silently corrected typographical errors. 4. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed. 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 6. Superscripts are denoted by a carat before a single superscript character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.