ce, full room is left for wonder, at the skill, the
intelligence, and the daring, which carried Cook and his companions safe
through the perils of this gigantic navigation.

A new expedition was soon demanded at once by the curiosity of the
people and the interests of science. The dream of a great southern
continent was still the favourite topic of all who regarded themselves
as philosophers in England, although Cook had sailed over an
unfathomable ocean, in the very tract where he ought, according to this
adventurous theory, to have found a continent. Sir Joseph Banks again
gallantly volunteered to join the expedition which was equipped for the
discovery. His large fortune enabled him to make unusual preparations;
but such was his zeal, that he even raised a loan for the purpose. He
engaged Zoffani, the painter, with three assistant draughtsmen. He
selected two secretaries and nine attendants, instructed in the art of
preserving plants and animals; he also provided books, drawings, and
instruments. But his natural ambition was suddenly thwarted by the
opposition of Sir Hugh Palliser, controller of the navy. For whatever
reason--and it is now difficult to imagine any, except some jealousy too
contemptible to name--so many obstructions were thrown in the way, that
Banks relinquished the pursuit, and turned his attention to a voyage to
Iceland. His suite, seamen and all, amounting to forty persons, reached
the island in 1772, examined its chief natural phenomena, Hecla and its
hot springs, and furnished its historian, Von Troil, with the materials
for the most accurate history of this outpost of the northern world.

On his return to England, he commenced the career, natural to an opulent
man of a cultivated mind, but yet so seldom followed in England by
individuals of even higher means than his own. He fitted up a large
house in Soho Square with all the preparatives for a life of literary
association--a copious library, collections of natural history, and
philosophical instruments. He held frequent conversaziones, gave
dinners, and easily and naturally constituted himself the leader of the
men of science in London. In Lincolnshire, where his chief property
lay, he performed the part of the liberal and hospitable country
gentleman on a large scale; while in London, he was the first person to
whom scientific foreigners were introduced, and the principal patron and
protector of ingenious men.

On the resignation of Sir Joh