The story of the foundation of the Institution sounds more like a romance than like fact. Its history seems like the fulfillment of some ancient prophecy—even more strikingly so because it is evident that the future is to fulfill the promise of the past. The father of the founder of the Smithsonian Institution was one of the most distinguished members of the English peerage. Upon the plate of his coffin in Westminster Abbey, where he was buried “in great pomp” in 1786, he is described as “the most high, puissant and most noble prince Hugh Percy, Duke and Earl of Northumberland, Earl Percy, Baron Warkworth and Lovaine, Lord Lieutenant and Custos Rotulorum of the Counties of Middlesex and Northumberland, Vice Admiral of the County of Northumberland and of all America, one of the Lords of His Majesty’s most Honorable Privy Council and Knight of the most noble Order of the Garter, etc., etc.” While his aged father was sustaining this overwhelming accumulation of dignities, and while his elder brother, Earl Percy, was acting as Lieutenant-General in the war against the rebellious British colonies in North America (he commanded the reinforcements at the battle of Lexington in 1775, and led the column that reduced Fort Washington, near New York in 1776), James Smithson, a youth of modest fortune, inherited from his mother, was laying the foundations of a scientific education in the English schools and colleges, receiving the degree of Master of Arts at Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1786, the year of his father’s death. He was then known as James Louis Macie, Esq., and did not assume the name of Smithson until fourteen years later, after he had attained to some reputation as a man of science. His mother was not the Duchess of Northumberland, but a cousin of her father’s, Elizabeth Hungerford, who was subsequently known as Mrs. Macie. She appears to have been the daughter and heiress of Sir George Hungerford of Audley and the Hon. Frances Seymour, sister of the Duke of Somerset and aunt of Algernon Seymour, Lord Percy, by marriage with whose daughter Sir Hugh Smithson was enabled to assume the name of Percy and the title of Duke of Northumberland. The Smithsons were an old Yorkshire family, Sir Hugh Smithson, the great-grandfather of James Smithson, having been created baronet in 1660 by Charles II. after his restoration. The names of Percy and Northumberland were, as has been stated, assumed by James Smithson’s father. These barren, genealogical details are referred to because they seem to be necessary to the understanding of James Smithson’s career.