Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/322

290 for analysis. He was graduated on the 26th of May, 1786; and the impulse for scientific research gained at the university influenced all his succeeding years. The highest ambition of an English man of science is to append to his name the honorable initials F, R. S., and to enjoy the privileges accorded to Fellows of the Royal Society. Recommended by Richard Kirwan, the Irish chemist.



Charles Blagden, the Secretary of the Society, Henry Cavendish, the wealthy and eccentric physicist, and others, Smithson was elected a Fellow exactly eleven months after leaving the university.

During his residence in London he cultivated the society of authors, artists, and men of science. "His mind was filled with a craving for intellectual development, and for the advancement of human knowledge. To enlarge the domain of thought, to discover new truths, and to make practical application of these for the promotion of civilization, were the great ends he had constantly in view." Smithson possessed large means; he never