Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/46

xl the project of a second voyage was mooted, as already mentioned on p. xxvii. How this idea was received by Linnæus, the following extracts from his correspondence with Ellis will show:—

I have just read, in some foreign newspapers, that our friend Solander intends to revisit those new countries, discovered by Mr. Banks and himself, in the ensuing spring. This report has affected me so much as almost entirely to deprive me of sleep. How vain are the hopes of man! Whilst the whole botanical world, like myself, has been looking for the most transcendent benefits to our science, from the unrivalled exertions of your countrymen, all their matchless and truly astonishing collection, such as has never been seen before, nor may ever be seen again, is to be put aside untouched, to be thrust into some corner, to become perhaps the prey of insects and of destruction.

I have every day been figuring to myself the occupations of my pupil Solander, now putting his collection in order, having first arranged and numbered his plants, in parcels, according to the places where they were gathered, and then written upon each specimen its native country and appropriate number. I then fancied him throwing the whole into classes, putting aside and naming such as were already known; ranging others under known genera, with specific differences, and distinguishing by new names and definitions such as formed new genera, with their species. Thus, thought I, the world will be delighted and benefited by all these discoveries; and the foundations of true science will be strengthened, so as to endure through all generations!

I am under great apprehension that, if this collection should remain untouched till Solander's return, it might share the same lot as Forskål's Arabian specimens at Copenhagen. Solander promised long ago, while detained off the coast of Brazil, in the early part of his voyage, that he would visit me after his return, of which I have been in expectation. If he had brought some of his specimens with him, I could at once have told him what were new; and we might have turned over some books together, and he might have been informed or satisfied upon many subjects, which after my death will not be so easily explained.

I have no answer from him to the letter I enclosed to you, which I cannot but wonder at. You, yourself, know how much I have esteemed him, and how strongly I recommended him to you. By all that is great and good, I entreat you, who know so well the value of science, to do all that in you lies for the publication of these new acquisitions, that the learned world may not be deprived of them

Again the plants of Solander and Banks recur to my imagination.