SMITH, Sir James Edward, the purchaser of the collections and library of Linnaeus, and the founder of the Linnean Society, was born at Norwich, on the 2d December 1759. His father was a man of cultivated mind, and being in prosperous circumstances was capable of affording his son an excellent education. Young Smith early inherited the taste for flowers peculiar to natives of Norwich, supposed to have been introduced into the place by the Flemish weavers who took refuge in England from the tyranny of the Spaniards. He proceeded to Edinburgh in 1781, where he obtained the gold medal for the best botanical collection. Accidentally hearing that Linnaeus's collection was to be disposed of, he prevailed upon his father to advance the sum of £1088, 5s., which made him the possessor of that splendid museum. Smith settled in London, with the intention of practising his profession. He subsequently made a tour on the continent, obtained an M.D. at Leyden, and published the result of his travels on his return to London. In 1788 he founded the Linnean Society, and was chosen its first president. In 1792 he was employed to teach botany to Queen Charlotte and the Princesses; in 1796 he removed to Norwich; and in 1814 he was knighted as institutor and president of the Linnean Society. The most popular of his works are his English Botany, in 36 vols., 1792-1807; Biographical Memoirs of several Norwich Botanists, 1803; Flora Britannica, 3 vols., 1800-1804; the English Flora, 4 vols.; Flora Græca, from Dr Sibthorpe's Materials, 1808; and Flora Græca Prodromus, 1808. He was likewise author of the botanical articles and of the botanical biography in Rees's Cyclopædia, from the letter C. (See his Memoir by his widow, 2 vols., 1833.)