ART. VI. — Memoir and Correspondence of the late SIR JAMES EDWARD SMITH, M. D., Fellow of the Royal Society of London; Member of the Academies of Stockholm, Upsal, Turin, Lisbon, Philadelphia, New York, &c. &c., and President of the Linnæan Society. Edited by LADY SMITH. 2 vols. 8vo. London. London. 1832.

A little too much has been made of this Correspondence. Still we join with the Editors of "The Select Journal" in recommending the publication of a judicious abridgment of it in this country. Meanwhile we must not let the opportunity pass without making our readers more fully acquainted with the truly estimable character of the man, and the moral and religious influences under which it was formed. At a time when there is so much real or affected skepticism among would-be naturalists and philosophers, it is well to hold up the example of one who stood for many years at the very head of an important department of science, without allowing the study of nature to unsettle his confidence in revelation, or the most liberal and rational sentiments on all subjects to abate the warmth of his devotional feelings, or the voice of numbers, the reproach of heresy, or the tempting offers of worldly advancement, to corrupt him from the simplicity that is in Christ.*

Sir James Edward Smith was born in the city of Norwich, December 2, 1759. He was the oldest of seven children, and for almost five years an only child. His father, Mr. James Smith, was a dealer in the woollen trade, of respectable connexions and easy in his circumstances, and of a naturally strong understanding, much cultivated and enlarged by reading and a habit of thinking for himself on all subjects. This is evinced in extracts which are given from his Common-Place Book, containing criticisms on English and

* Besides the Memoir and Correspondence of Sir James, edited by his accomplished Lady, we have had before us, in collecting these notices, the brief but authentic and interesting account of him, published in "The Monthly Repository," Vol. II. pp. 347-351, New Series; and his Life, in the "Annual Biography," Vol. XIII. pp. 301318, being the same, with a few corrections and additions, that first appeared in "The Philosophical Magazine." These, it is believed, are all the important original authorities.

VOL. XV.-N. S. VOL. X. NO. III.

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French authors, as well as in his letters, which form an interesting and valuable part of the Correspondence, and show him to have been one of the wisest and kindest of parents. He was a staunch Whig and Protestant Dissenter, and belonged to the congregation worshipping in the Octagon Chapel in Norwich, Unitarian from its first erection in 1756. Here it was that Mr. Smith, as well as his son, along with the Taylors, the Martineaus, and other well-known Unitarian families, imbibed that love of civil and religious liberty, and those devotional and philanthropic sentiments, by which they have always been distinguished. Sir James's mother, Frances Kinderley, was the daughter of a clergyman of an ancient and once opulent family in the north of England, remarkable for the sweetness and generosity of his temper and his eccentricities. This lady lived to the advanced age of eighty-eight, and will long be remembered by a numerous circle of friends and relatives, for her benevolence, cheerfulness, and activity, and for her winning, unaffected piety, unalloyed by the smallest mixture of gloom or uncharitableness. To the last year of his existence, Sir James often expressed his obligations to both his parents for the free action his mind acquired, from their encouragement not to follow any received opinion blindly and implicitly, but to dare to think for himself, and stand alone.

This encouragement was the more necessary in his case, from the circumstance, that his character in childhood was marked by a natural timidity, a diffidence amounting to a degree often painfully embarrassing, and which was never so obliterated from his remembrance, but that at times he would recur, in conversation, to events in early life, when for a word or almost a thought, which struck him as wrong, he experienced the pangs of a broken and contrite spirit. It was on account of a constitutional delicacy of spirits, as well as of health, that he was never sent to a public school, but was attended at home by the best masters which his native city afforded, and under their tuition he acquired a competent knowledge of the French and Italian languages, and of the rudiments of the Latin. But the best part of his education was derived from the society of his well-informed, sensible parents, and from reading and conversation in the domestic circle, by which the heart as well as the understanding was instructed and enlarged. Under these in

fluences he grew up, and on the basis of extreme delicacy and sensitiveness of soul, by the aid of judicious culture and religious principle, a moral courage and a noble independence of character were reared, by which he became distinguished, in after life, almost as much as for his amiable and affectionate disposition.

Botany, "the amiable science," as it has been called, was the study for such a mind, and his early predilection for it, and the difficulties and encouragements he met with, are often mentioned in his writings. In one of his introductory lectures before the Royal Institution, he observes:

"From the earliest period of my recollection, when I can just remember tugging ineffectually with all my infant strength at the tough stalks of the Wild Succory on the chalky hillocks about Norwich, I have found the study of Nature an increasing source of unalloyed pleasure, and a consolation and refuge under every pain. Long destined to other pursuits, and directed to other studies, thought more advantageous or necessary, I could often snatch but a few moments for this favorite object. Unassisted by advice, unacquainted with books, I wandered long in the dark; till some of the principal elementary works, the publications of Lee, Rose, Stillingfleet, and a few others, came in my way, and were devoured over and over again. This kind of botanical education has the advantages of the necessary drudgery of a grammar-school; it trains the mind to labor, it fixes principles and facts and terms and names, never to be forgotten. At length, however, I found I wanted something more, to apply to practice what had thus been acquired. I was then furnished with systematic books, and introduced to Mr. Rose, whose writings had long been my guide. I was shown the works of Linnæus; nor shall I ever forget the feelings of wonder excited by finding his whole system of animals, vegetables, and minerals, comprised in three octavo volumes. I had seen a fine quarto volume of Buffon, on the Horse alone. I expected to find the systematical works of Linnæus constituting a whole library; but they proved almost capable of being put, like the Iliad, into a nutshell. Hence a new world was opened to me. I found myself moreover in the centre of a school of botanists. Ever since the Spanish tyranny and folly had driven commerce and ingenuity from Flanders, to take refuge in Britain, a taste for flowers had subsisted in my native county along with them. Our weavers, like those of Spitalfields, have from time immemorial been florists, and many of them most excellent culti

vators; their necessary occupations and these amusements were peculiarly compatible. And it is well worthy of remark, that those elegant and virtuous dispositions, which can relish the beauties of nature, are no less strictly in unison with that purity of moral and religious taste which drove the founders of our Worsted manufactory from foul and debasing tyranny to the abode of light and peace and liberty."— Vol. I. pp. 323 – 325.

In the autumn of 1781, he repaired to Edinburgh to finish his education at the University, with a view to the study of medicine. Here he passed two years, and found warm and kind friends, as he did everywhere, and in friendship a pure enjoyment. His proficiency in other branches of knowledge appears to have been respectable only, but in his favorite science he soon distanced every competitor, and carried off all the honors. To his mother, soon after his establishment in the northern metropolis, he expresses himself thus:

"My happiness, honored Madam, in my present situation, is completed by your expressing so much happiness in my prospects, as well as my father. I cannot help considering it, as you say, peculiarly directed by the Almighty, and therefore I recur immediately to him when any gloomy ideas present themselves; as I hope I have the most perfect confidence in him, and trust he will preserve us all to be a blessing to each other. But if he thinks fit to separate us, I hope we could acquiesce; and we know that not a single kind thought can ever be lost, or lose its reward. I have met with a number of young play-fellows, as you said I should. The children of Dr. Duncan are very pretty, and remarkably sensible; and here are a sweet little boy and girl, the children of Dr. Adam, whom I often play with. Mrs. Adam is a very beautiful, polite woman, and the children in perfect order; the little lass told her mamma I was a bonny man.' 'Ay,' says her brother, and a good man, too!'"- Vol. I. p. 39. In a letter to his father, written about the same time, he says:

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"It is accidental my not having mentioned Dr. Hutton; he is one of my best and most agreeable acquaintances, a man of the most astonishing penetration and remarkable clearness of intellects, with the greatest good humor and frankness; in short, I cannot discover in what his oddity (of which I heard so much) consists. He is a bachelor, and lives with three

maiden sisters; so you may be sure the house and every thing about it is in the nicest order. I step in when I like, and drink tea with them; and the Doctor and I sometimes walk together. He is an excellent mineralogist, and is very communicative, very clear, and of a candid, though quick temper; in short, I am quite charmed with him. He has a noble collection of fossils, which he likes to show :- by the way, I do not mean to prosecute this study any further than is necessary and proper for me to be acquainted with; it requires infinite attention and labor, and there are few certain conclusions to be found. I shall endeavour to get a general knowledge of every branch of literature as it falls in my way; but believe I shall find enough to employ me in the strict line of my profession, with the two first kingdoms of nature by way of relax ́ation; for I am fully persuaded, that an intimate acquaintance with these is not only peculiarly ornamental, but highly necessary, to form an accomplished physician, as literature now stands; and am sure the benefit I have derived, wherever I have been, and am continually deriving, from the little knowledge of this kind which I am possessed of, is greater than could have been imagined, I mean with respect to introducing me to the literary world; for if I had been without such an introduction, I might have drudged here perhaps a couple of years before I could have done any thing to have signalized myself, or have been taken half the notice of which I now am." Vol. I. pp. 45, 46.

Again he writes to a friend of his own age, with whom he had contracted the closest intimacy:

"It is a most discouraging thing to a young man entering into life, his heart, without reserve or suspicion, overflowing with the 'milk of human kindness,' to be told by those who have gone before him, that his ideas of friendship, love, honor, are merely romantic, and not to be realized in a commerce with the world; that there, self-interest, ambition, avarice, and lust, reign with absolute sway; that those feelings, which (if he be not a villain) have chiefly contributed to his happiness hitherto, must now be restrained by prudence, and be perfectly obedient to the dictates of interest and worldly advantage. They tell him, that now

"The wild romance of life is done;

Its real history is begun.'

"I would fain hope this is exaggerated not that I would by any means reject the use of due caution and prudence in forming friendships. I am perfectly convinced, that on this