The Lost World of James Smithson

by Heather Ewing

  51 A copy of Breve Notizia di un Viaggiatore, inscribed "from Dr. Thomson", mentions Smithson on p. 16; Smithson Library, SIL. The book, though undated, was published at Naples in October 1795 according to the Bibliotheque Britannique, which published it in its first issue (BB, vol. 1, no. 1 (January 1796), pp. 65–88) with an introduction by Pictet; it was also printed in the Naples journal Giomale Letterario vol. 41 (December 15, 1795), pp. 39–51, Crell abstracted it in his Annalen, and it also appeared in the Annales de Chimie. For Jameson, see "Jameson's Approach to the Wernerian Theory of the Earth, 1796" in Annals of Science 23 (1967), pp. 81–95. William Batt, resident in Genoa, occupied the first chair in chemistry at the university in Genoa; Sandro Doldi, Scienza e Tecnica in Liguria (Genoa, 1984), p. 46. For the reference to the chemical Macie, see Batt to Sir Joseph Banks, February 7, 1803; Banks Collection, Sutro Library, California. Humphry Davy mentioned Macie in Lecture 7; Robert Siegfried and Robert H. Dott, Jr., eds, Humphry Davy on Geology: The 1805 Lectures for the General Audience (University of Wisconsin Press, 1980), p. 93.

  52 In response Black sent a long letter describing his home-made balance, which Smithson published in 1825. Joseph Black to James Louis Macie, September 18, 1790; EUL Gen 873/II/158–9. The letter begins, "I had the pleasure to receive your letter of the 9th. The apparatus I use for weighing very small masses such as the globules of metals produced by essays with the blowpipe &c is as follows… ." It was published in Annals of Philosophy, vol. 10, no. 1 (July 1825) with a note by Smithson, and republished in the Mechanics Magazine 6 (1827), pp. 119–20.

  53 James Louis Macie, Esq. F.R.S., "An Account of Some Chemical Experiments on Tabasheer," Philosophical Transactions 81 (1791), pp. 368–88. Norman Moore, "Pitcairn, William (1712–1791)," rev. Catherine Bergin, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). Pitcairn was, with Smithson, a member of the Society for Promoting Natural History; he had a five-acre botanical garden behind his house on Upper Street. Jan Ingen-Housz, the discoverer of photosynthesis, was in the audience when Smithson's paper was read out to the society. He too was evidently impressed with Smithson. His list of contacts in London included "James L. Macie, F.R.S., a good chemist, Orchard Street on Portman Square." Breda Archives. Thanks to the archivist Dr. Jan Wessels for his assistance, and thanks too to Dr. and Mrs. Beale, authors of a forthcoming biography of Ingen-Housz, for an interesting correspondence on the topic.

  54 "Thomson, William (bap. 1760, d. 1806)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). Thomson to George Paton, September 25, 1790, National Library of Scotland, Adv. MS 29.5.8 (ii), fo. 80., quoted in E.G.W. Bill, Education at Christ Church Oxford, 1660–1800 (Oxford, 1988), p. 316. Minutes and Register of Convocation 1776–93, pp. 437–8, Oxford University Archives.

  55 Anonymous, Satan's Harvest Home: or the Present State of Whorecraft, Adultery, Fornication, Procuring, Pimping, Sodomy … and other Satanic Works, daily propagated in this good Protestant Kingdom (1749), quoted in H. Montgomery Hyde, The Love that Dared Not Speak its Name (Boston, 1970), pp. 67–8.

  56 Blagden reported the results to the Royal Society on February 16, 1775; Harold B. Carter, Sir Joseph Banks, 1743–1820, (London, 1988), p. 127.

  57 Macie, "An Account of Some Chemical Experiments on Tabasheer," Phil. Trans. (1791). Smithson mineral notes from Paris May 1819 experiments; SIA, RU 7000, Box 2.

  58 M. P. Crosland, "Pierre Louis Dulong (1785–1838)," DSB, vol. 4, pp. 238–42. Paul Dorveaux, "Bertrand Pelletier," Revue d'Histoire de la Pharmacie (March 1937), pp. 5–24.

  59 The receipt book came into the Smithson Collection in 1914, well after the Smithsonian fire and cannot be definitively attributed to him. It is signed "Smithson" on one of the first pages. The bulk of the text is not, contrary to what has sometimes been stated, written in Smithson's hand. SIA, RU 7000, Box 2.

  60 Dr. William Drew to Lady Webster, n.d. [June-July 5, 1797]; BL Add MS 51814, ff. 37–8. See also W. F. Bynum and Roy Porter, eds, "Brunonianism in Britain and Europe," Medical History Supplement, no. 8 (1988).

  61 James Smithson to Lady Holland, May 1, n.y. [1801]. BL Add MS 51846, ff. 104–5.

  62 Smithson to Greville, January 1, 1792; BL Add MS 41199, f. 82.

  63 Edward Wedlake Brayley, A Topographical and Historical Description of London and Middlesex (London, 1820) pp. 543–4. Smithson may well have been the J.L.M. who was listed as a new subscriber (alongside William Adams, Master of Pembroke College) to the relief of the poor in Oxford the week of January 6, 17'89; Jackson's Oxford Journal 1863, iii (89:6b).

  64 John Richardson, Annals of London: a year-by-year record of a thousand years of history (London, 2000), p. 226. Adam Walker to Giovanni Fabbroni, January 24, 1791; APS B F113.

  65 Philadelphia Percy's obituary in Gentleman's Magazine (1791), part 2, p. 1068. Smithson does not appear to have arrived in Paris yet in November 1791, according to registers maintained by police, held in the archives of the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris; no records are held for after November 1791, so it is not possible to ascertain exactly when he arrived in Paris. When he finally appeared in Florence he wrote to Fabbroni (in the third person), stating, "He [Smithson] would be much obliged to him [Fabbroni] if he could lend him a volume or two of the Monthly Review, as he he [sic] has never seen this work since Nov.br 1791." This letter suggests perhaps that November 1791 was the last month that he was in England. Macie to Fabbroni, n.d. [c. 1793]; B F113 APS.

  66 Will of Margaret Marriott, written April 16, 1821, was proved November 12, 1827; TNA: PRO PROB 11/1733. Personal communication with the Westminster Abbey archivist, August 2003.

  6. Grand Tour, 1791–1797

  1 James L. Macie to Charles F. Greville, January 1, 1792; BL Add MS 41199, f. 82.

  2 James L. Macie to Davies Giddy, May 9, 1792; collection of the Smithsonian Institution Libraries (SIL); printed in Smithsonian Annual Report of 1884, pp. 5–6.

  3 David Garrioch, "When to Wear a Red Bonnet," review of The Politics of Appearance: The Symbolism and Representation of Dress in Revolutionary France, by Richard Wrigley, in the London Review of Books, April 3, 2003, pp. 32–3. Macie to Giddy, May 9, 1792; SIL.

  4 John Goldworth Alger, Glimpses of the French Revolution: Myths, Ideals, Realities (London, 1894), p. 70.

  5 Quoted in John Fisher, The Elysian Fields: France in Ferment, 1789–1804 (London, 1966), p. 130.

  6 Macie to Giddy, May 9, 1792; SIL.

  7 Quoted in George Woodcock, "The Meaning of Revolution in Britain," in Ian Small, The French Revolution and British Culture (Oxford, 1989), p. 5.

  8 James Watt, Jr., quoted in John Goldworth Alger, Paris in 1789–94 (London, 1902), pp. 324–5.

  9 Thomas Cooper, "A Reply to Mr. Burke's Invective against Mr. Cooper and Mr. Watt., in the House of Commons, on the 30th of April, 1792" (Manchester, 1792), p. 5. John Goldworth Alger, Englishmen in the French Revolution (London, 1889), p. 45–6.

  10 Stephen L. Newman, "Cooper, Thomas (1759–1839)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). Dumas Malowe, The Public Life of Thomas Cooper, 1783–1839 (Columbia, 1961).

  11 Richard Price, "A Discourse on the love of our country, delivered on 4 Nov., 1789 …," quoted in Jenny Graham, "Revolutionary Philosopher: The Political Ideas of Joseph Priestley (1733–1804): Part II," Enlightenment and Dissent 9 (1990), p. 15. Macie to Greville, January 1, 1792; BL Add MS 41199, f. 82.

  12 Macie to Greville, January 1, 1792; BL Add MS 41199, f. 82.

  13 Gouverneur Morris to Thomas Jefferson, June 10, 1792, from the Diary and Letters of Gouvemeur Morris (1888); quoted in William Howard Adams, Gouverneur Morris: An Independent Life (Yale, 2003), p. 237.

  14 In June 1793 the Muséum was born; all other state-sponsored academies and societies, including the Académie des Sciences, were suppressed. See E. C. Spary, Utopia's Garden: French Natural History from Old Regime to Revolution (Chicago, 2000), especially pp. 10, 17–18, 162, 173, 179. Berthollet to Martinus van Marum, February 3, 1792; quo
ted in Michelle Sadoun-Goupil, Le Chimiste Claude-Louis Berthollet (1748–1822): sa vie, son oeuvre (Paris, 1977), p. 319.

  15 Smithson to Giddy, May 9, 1792; SIL. Arthur Young, Travels in France in the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789, Constantia Maxwell, ed. (Cambridge, 1950), p. 187. Blagden movements from Gavin de Beer, "The Diary of Charles Blagden," Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London (London, 1951), col. 8, p.72. Donald McDonald, "Smithson Tennant, F.R.S. (1761–1815)," Notes and Records of the Royal Society 17 (1962), p. 82.

  16 Walter Johnson, "A Memoir on the Scientific Character and Researches of james Smithson, Esq., F.R.S." (Philadelphia, 1844). Smithson to Greville, January 1, 1792; BL Add MS 41199, f. 82.

  17 Fisher, Elysian Fields, pp. 126–7.

  18 De Beer, "The Diary of Sir Charles Blagden", pp. 75–6, 81.

  19 MSS journal of Mrs. Crewe, Paris, 1785–86; BL Add MS 37926, ff. 93–4.

  20 De Beer, "The Diary of Sir Charles Blagden," pp. 71–2. The Earl of Ilchester, ed., The Journal of Elizabeth Lady Holland (1791–1811) (London, 1908), vol. 1, p. 7. Beddoes back in England wrote to Giddy of the "wonderful diversion" coming in the news from Italy. He gave elaborate instructions for how to replicate the experiment, beginning by cutting the frog in half and delicately flaying the thighs "without disturbing the nerves, which you dissect a little way down." After coating the nerve endings with lead in tin foil, one then used silver or any conductor different from the coating to connect the coating and the frog's muscles. "The half-frog will jump with considerable force." The poor flayed frog could also be made to jump out of a glass of water by hanging the coated nerves into a second nearby glass of water, dipping a finger in and swirling it around while with one's other hand holding a piece of silver one touched the frog's muscles. Beddoes to Davies Giddy, October 8, 1792, DG41/54, CRO. See also Marcello Pera, The Ambiguous Frog: The Galvani-Volta Controversy on Animal Electricity, trans. Jonathan Mandelbaum (Princeton, 1992).

  21 Beddoes to Giddy, October 8, 1792, quoted in Larry Stewart, "Putting on Airs," in Discussing Chemistry and Steam: The Minutes of a Coffee House Philosophical Society (Oxford, 2002), p. 232.

  22 Davy to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, November, 25 1800, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS MA 1857 no. 11; quoted in Trevor Levere, Poetry Realized in Nature: Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Early Nineteenth-Century Science (Cambridge, 1981), p. 32.

  23 Quoted in Gavin de Beer, Travellers in Switzerland (Oxford, 1949), p. 94.

  24 Lady Spencer to Mrs. Howe, June 1, 1792; quoted in Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (London, 1998), p. 278.

  25 Rachel Laudan, From Mineralogy to Geology: The Foundations of a Science, 1650–1830 (University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 194. Blagden "saw the Dolomite, milky white opaque substance," at the Duchess of Devonshire's salon in Geneva in the early fall of 1792. De Beer, "The Diary of Sir Charles Blagden," p. 81.

  26 Smithson gave a half-dozen or more different specimens from this region to Father Petrini at the Collegio Nazareno; examples of "Felspato in massa grigio delle montagne di Trento fra Braunsdorf e Neumark," "Sasso argillioso Magnesiaco di Bressanano nel Tirolo," "Granulite di grani di felspato bianchi delle montagne del Tirolo fra Colmar e Braunsdorf," and "Porfido rosso di fegato con felspeti bianchi crossigni con horneblenda scura, di Bautsen nel Tirolo," are among those marked as "Dono del Sig. Macie," in Petrini's Catalogo Inventario di Mineralogia, c. 1794, Collegio Nazareno, Rome. I am grateful to Tonino Caruso, Librarian at the Collegio, for permission to consult the catalogue and quote from it. The mineral collection still exists but is in a state of disarray, and it is no longer possible to collate actual specimens with those listed in the catalogue.

  27 H. S. Torrens, "Thomson, William (bap. 1760, d. 1806)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004). The letters Thomson wrote to Cardinal Borgia are in the Vatican, Borg. Lat. 286, ff. 118–119v; 124–125v. Luigi Sementini wrote to Ottaviano Targioni-Tozzetti (OTT), February 19, 1803, explaining that he had made the best collection of Vesuviana for OTT that he possibly could, in light of the fact that Thomson was taking all the best specimens. OTT Papers 75, vol. 3, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze (BNCF).

  28 Macie to Greville, January 1, 1792; BL Add MS 41199, f 82.

  29 William Thomson to Ottaviano Targioni-Tozzetti, July 23, 1793. OTT Papers 75, vol. 4, BNCF. (The enclosed letter to Smithson no longer exists.) William Thomson to Giovanni Fabbroni, July 23, 1793. APS B F113.

  30 Eric Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, 1527–1800: A History of Florence and the Florentines in the Age of the Grand Dukes (Chicago and London, 1973). Diary of Henry Louis Dickenson, SIA RU 7000, Box 2.

  31 Nicholas Hans, "Franklin, Jefferson, and the English Radicals at the end of the Eighteenth Century," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 98, no. 6 (1954), pp. 416–17.

  32 John C. Greene, American Science in the Age of Jefferson (Iowa State University Press, 1984), p. 409.

  33 Quoted in Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, p. 446.

  34 Isaac Weld, Travels through the States of North America and the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, during the years 1795, 1796, and 1797 (London, 1807), 2 vols; Smithson Library, SIL. Smithson made many notes in this book, but the marking of the entire section on the city of Washington seems uncharacteristic and may be an indication of someone subsequently trying to emphasize Smithson's interest in the capital. For more on Brant see Thomas S. Abler, "Joseph Brant," American National Biography (New York, 1999). Perhaps Smithson met Brant when he came to London in 1786; Smithson's half-brother commissioned a portrait of Brant from Gilbert Stuart at this time.

  35 Quoted in Cochrane, Florence in the Forgotten Centuries, p. 446.

  36 The siege began in September, Toulon having rebelled against the Convention and appealed to the English, who sailed in along with some Spanish troops and occupied the port in late August. The French eventually retook the city in December, a victory that gained Napoleon, whose family had fled to Toulon from Corsica earlier in the summer and who had proposed the successful plan to eject the British, one of his first promotions. John Udny was the British consul in Livorno; his papers are at the British Library. The correspondence of John Hervey, consul in Florence, to William Hamilton is also full of information regarding Toulon; BL Egerton MS 2638, ff. 29–105.

  37 James Macie to Dr. Targioni [Ottaviano Targioni-Tozzetti], December 9, 1793; OTT 75 vol. 2, BNCF.

  38 Macie to Targioni-Tozzetti, December 9, 1793; OTT 75, vol. 2, BNCF. When Smithson had been in Florence, Fabbroni had loaned him "an immense box of crystals," inviting him to select a series of its offerings for himself and to do the same for the museum's cabinet. Smithson had happily complied, telling Fabbroni he hoped "to restore it to him again very soon, tho' despoiled … of some very curious specimens." When Smithson returned the box of crystals to Fabbroni, he noted he had "joined to each parcel a label referring to the plate of Delisle's book where it is figured." Macie to Fabbroni, n.d. [c. 1794], APS B F113.

  39 Marcello Mellini, "Paolo Mascagni Minore: II Naturalista," in La Scienza Illuminata: Paolo Mascagni nel suo Tempo (1755–1815) (Siena, 1996), pp. 37–45.

  40 Macie to Fabbroni, December 23, 1793, APS B F113.

  41 Much of Zoëga's correspondence is at the Danish Royal Library; there is no mention of Smithson, however. Smithson did have some Danish acquaintances. At one point he wrote to Fabbroni, "Mr. Macie requests the favor of Mr. Fabroni's [sic] company to breakfast tomorrow morning at half after eight o'clock to meet a Danish Gentleman whom he knows." Undated letter (c. 1794), APS B Fl13. It is possible that these contacts were coming to Smithson via his friend Thomson, as Thomson's address in Naples was "chez M. Heigelin" at the Danish consulate. R. T. Gunther, "Dr. William Thomson, F.R.S., a Forgotten English Mineralogist, 1761–c. 1806," Nature, no. 3625 (April 22, 1939), p. 667. On May 12, 1794, Petrini wrote to Fabbroni to introduce a "Sig[nore]. Wat," a friend of both Thomson's and Petrini's, and an "excellent Danish
mineralogist." APS B Fl13.

  42 Macie to Fabbroni, December 23, 1793. APS B F113.

  43 Lord Wycombe to Lansdowne, Rome, November 8, 1794. Bowood Muniments, Microfilm 2030, Bodleian Library.

  44 Macie to Fabbroni, December 23, 1793. APS B F113.

  45 Macie to Fabbroni, n.d., c. 1793–4. APS B F113.

  46 Diccionario Enciclopedico Escolapio (Salamanca, 1983), vol. 2, p. 433. Petrini made a new catalogue of the collection following joseph II's donation: Musei Mineralogie! Descriptionem, exhibentem metallorum ex Hungaria parte maxima serieum, liberalitate losephi II, Romanorum Imperatoris, ad usum Collegii N. dono datorum: Romae, typ. Zempel, 1794. Smithson also made a number of gifts to the collection, which are documented in the catalogue of the collection today at the archives of the Collegio Nazareno.

  47 Lady Vassall-Webster to Fabbroni, February 27, 1796; APS B F113.

  48 Petrini to Fabbroni, December 14, 1793; APS B F113.

  49 William Thomson to Fabbroni, June 17, 1793; APS B F113.

  50 See Blagden letters to Banks at the BL and the Blagden Papers at the Royal Society. David Philip Miller, "Blagden, Sir Charles (bap. 1748, d. 1820)," Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004).

  51 Charles Blagden to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, January 4, 1794. Devonshire MSS, Chatsworth, 5th Duke's Group, 1202. I'm grateful to Hugh Torrens for bringing this letter to my attention, and to the Duke of Devonshire and the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees for permission to quote from it.

  52 Blagden to Banks, October 17, 1784; DTC, vol. 4, ff. 75–6. Georgiana's natural child Eliza Courtney, whom she called "my sweet but hidden violet" in a poem, was born in Aix-en-Provence on February 20, 1792; Earl of Bessborough, ed., Georgiana: Extracts from the Correspondence of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (London, 1955), p. 294.

  53 Petrini's original letter to the duchess is lost. We can recover what his comments on "that other part of [Macie's] character" would have been from his ecstatic letter to Fabbroni probably penned the same day (December 14). The duchess' letter to Blagden asking about Macie is also gone. The duchess was in Bath from late November 1793 to mid-January 1794, according to Bessborough, Georgiana (1955), p. 204. Thanks to the Archivist at Chatsworth for his assistance.