(Dr John), professor of botany in the university of Edinburgh, was born at Edinburgh on the 10th of May 1725. He was the son of Mr Robert Hope a respectable surgeon, whose father, Lord Rankeil, made a distinguished figure as one of the senators of the college of justice in the kingdom of Scotland. By his mother he was descended from the ancient family of Glaes of Sauchie in Stirlingshire. After finishing the usual course of school education, he entered to the university of Edinburgh; and having, as it were, an hereditary predilection for the healing art, his attention was soon particularly directed to that branch of science. Having finished his academical education at Edinburgh, he visited other medical schools; and upon his return to his native country, he obtained the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the university of Glasgow in the beginning of the year 1750. A few months after that, he was admitted a member of the royal college of physicians in Edinburgh, and entered upon the practice of medicine in this city. After he had continued about ten years in practice, discharging the duties of his profession with a degree of judgment, attention, and humanity, which did him great honour; by the death of Dr Alton the botanical chair in the university became vacant; when Dr Hope, by a commission from his sovereign, dated the 13th of April 1761, was appointed king's botanist for Scotland and superintendant of the royal garden at Edinburgh. A few weeks after this he was elected by the town council of Edinburgh as the successor of Dr Alton in the professorships both of botany and materia medica; and thus he became one of the members of the faculty of medicine in the university. After he had continued for about six years to give regular courses of lectures on these subjects, with no less credit to himself than benefit to his hearers, teaching the one branch during the summer, and the other during the winter months, he found that his health was considerably impaired; which induced him to form the resolution of resigning the materia medica, and of afterwards solely confining his labours as a teacher to his favourite science of botany. This resolution he carried into effect in the year 1768; and by a new commission from his majesty, dated the 8th of May, he was nominated regius professor of medicine and botany in the university, and had the offices of king's botanist and superintendant of the royal garden conferred upon him for life, which till that time had been always granted during pleasure only.

Dr Hope's predecessor, although a learned and worthy man, could never obtain sufficient public funds for the establishment of a proper botanical garden at Edinburgh; and from the situation, as well as the extent of the garden at that time, joined to the smallness of its conservatories for plants, it could boast of no riches in the way of exotics. The only field for improvement, therefore, to the botanical student, was the environs of Edinburgh, to which it must indeed be allowed that nature has been uncommonly liberal, in affording a very great variety of indigenous vegetables. In this situation, the establishment of a new garden naturally suggested itself as a grand and important object; and it was accomplished by the zeal and industry of Dr Hope, aided by the munificence of his present majesty. The first assistance given to the undertaking was under the administration of Lord Bute; and afterwards, under that of the duke of Portland, a permanent fund for the support of the botanical garden at this place was established, which may render it not inferior to any in Europe. Dr Hope's unwearied exertions Hope.

ertions in procuring for the garden the vegetable productions of every climate, could not be exceeded. His endeavours were constantly directed in adding not to the show, but to the riches of the garden; and they were employed with such success, that in a very short time the intelligent botanist might gratify his curiosity, in contemplating the rarest plants of every country which has yet been explored. Nor were his industrious exertions more affluently bestowed in forming and enriching the garden, than in cherishing and promoting a zeal for botanical studies. From but a very small number of lectures, which were all that his predecessor ever gave, he gradually prolonged the course till it became as complete as any one delivered at this place; and during all this extended course, he taught in such a manner, as clearly demonstrated a degree of ardour and enthusiasm in himself, which could hardly fail to inspire similar emotions in others. But even such precepts, and such example, were not the only means he employed for directing the attention of the industrious, ingenious, and laudably ambitious student, to this branch of science. By bestowing, entirely at his own expense, an annual gold medal, as a testimony of superior merit, he gave a spur to exertion, from which the toils of study were alleviated by the love of fame, and the labours of industry converted into the pleasures of emulation.

Dr Hope married the daughter of Dr Stevenson, an eminent physician in Edinburgh; by whom he had four sons and one daughter. He died in November 1786. He was a member not only of the Royal Society of London, but also of several foreign societies; and at the time of his death he held the distinguished office of president of the royal college of physicians. Dr Hope, with whom it was a principal object to make botany subservient to the acts more immediately useful to life, and particularly to medicine, was one of the first who, in conjunction with the late Sir Alexander Dick, turned his attention to the practical cultivation of rhubarb in Britain; and he demonstrated the facility with which it might be multiplied. He lived to see it cultivated in such abundance, that the British market was no longer under any necessity of depending upon foreign climates for this valuable and once expensive medicine; also he has shown, that the *afafetida* plant, by proper attention, not only bears the vicissitudes of our climate, but grows in such a vigorous and healthful state as to be fully impregnated with its active gum. There is therefore reason to hope, that by the exertions of future industry, the shop of the apothecary may be supplied with this article also from his own garden. Besides being the author of some papers in the Philosophical Transactions, particularly two respecting the useful plants just mentioned, Dr Hope had in contemplation a more extensive botanical work, on which he had bestowed much study and reflection. It was his wish to increase those advantages which result from the very ingenious and useful artificial arrangement of Linnæus, by conjoining it with a system of vegetables distributed according to their great natural orders. For this purpose, no inconsiderable part of that time which he could spare from other unavoidable engagements was employed in attempts to improve and perfect natural method in the arrangement of vegetables. In this work he had made very considerable progress; and it must be the subject of sincere regret to every lover of botany, if from the event of his death the public shall be forever deprived of those fruits of his labours.

ethics, is the desire of some good, attended with a belief of the possibility, at least, of obtaining it, and enlivened with joy, greater or less, according to the greater or less probability of our possessing the object of our hope. Alexander, preparing for his Asian expedition, distributed his hereditary dominions among his friends; allotting to some villages, to others boroughs, to others cities; and being asked what he had reserved for himself, replied, Hope.

Good Hope. See Good Hope.