In 1791, Frederick WENDEBORN wrote thus:—‘The King’s private Library ... can boast very valuable and magnificent books, which, as it is said, will be one time or another joined to those of the British Museum.’ WENDEBORN[18] was a German preacher, resident in London for many years. He was known to Queen CHARLOTTE, and had occasional intercourse with the Court. May it not be inferred that on some occasion or other the King had intimated, if not an intention, at least a thought on the matter, which some courtier or other had repeated in the hearing of Dr. WENDEBORN? CHAPTER V. THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY. ‘It may be averred for truth that they be not the highest instances that give the best and surest information.... It often comes to pass [in the study of Nature] that small and mean things conduce more to the discovery of great matters, than great things to the discovery of small matters.’—BACON. ‘Not every man is fit to travel. Travel makes a wise man better, but a fool worse.’—OWEN FELLTHAM. _The Life, Travels, and Social Influence, of Sir Joseph_ BANKS.—_The Royal Society under his Presidency.—His Collections and their acquisition by the Trustees of the British Museum.—Notices of some other contemporaneous accessions._ [Sidenote: BOOK II, Chap. V. THE FOUNDER OF THE BANKSIAN MUSEUM AND LIBRARY.] We have now to glance at the career—personal and scientific—of an estimable public benefactor, with whom King GEORGE THE THIRD had much pleasant intercourse, both of a public and a private kind. Sir Joseph BANKS was almost five years younger than his royal friend and correspondent, but he survived the King by little more than three months, so that the Georgian and the Banksian Libraries were very nearly contemporaneous accessions. The former, as we have seen, was given in 1823, and fully received in 1828; the latter was bequeathed (conditionally) in 1820, and received in 1827. These two accessions, taken conjointly, raised the Museum collection of books (for the first time in its history) to a respectable rank amongst the National Libraries of the day. The Banksian bequest made also an important addition to the natural-history collections, especially to the herbaria. It is as a cultivator and promoter of the natural sciences, and pre-eminently of botany, that Sir Joseph won for himself enduring fame. But he was also conspicuous for those personal and social qualities which are not less necessary to the man, than are learning and liberality to the philosopher. For the lack of such personal qualities some undoubted public benefactors have been, nevertheless, bad citizens. In this public benefactor both sets of faculties were harmoniously combined. They shone in his form and countenance. They yet dwell in the memory of a survivor or two, here and there, who were the contemporaries of his closing years.