Volume 1

Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie / by Timothy Holmes.

  • Timothy Holmes
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie / by Timothy Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ceived with much cordiality, “partly from Home’s recommendation and partly from knowing that I was occupied with him in making dissections in com- parative anatomy ”—a subject of peculiar interest to Banks. At the time of Brodie’s introduction to him, Banks had long been President of the Royal Society, an office which he held fron 1778 to 1820, and he was acquainted with all the foreign as well as English men of science of the day; though in that time of war foreigners were, of course, scarce in London. He evidently took a great liking to the young surgeon and anatomist, and Brodie speaks with pleasure and evident pride of the attentions which the distinguished President showed him. He was admitted to the Sun- day tea-parties which assembled at Banks’s house in town—at which “everything was conducted in the plainest manner,” and no other refreshment than tea was served—but at which a brilliant society congre- gated — “the elder Herschel, Davy, Wollaston, Young, Hatchett, Wilkins the Sanscrit scholar, Marsden, Major Rennell, Henry Cavendish, Home, Barrow, Maskelyne, Blagden, Abernethy, Carlisle, and others who have long since passed away, but whose reputation still remains, and gives a character to the age in which they lived.” He was also a guest at Sir Joseph’s table, and his visitor at his suburban villa at Spring Grove, which has given its name to the present suburb near Isleworth. Brodie seems to have felt a real attachment for his distinguished predecessor in the chair of the Royal Society, and gives a very pleasing idea of his simplicity and
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