380 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS. [May 25, 1857. 



limited Arctic area, but also by bis willingly undertaking to make 

 that appeal to the House of Lords in the last session of Parliament, 

 which, in his unavoidable absence, was effectively made by Lord 

 Wrottesley, the President of the Eoyal Society. 



Among the last of Lord Ellesmere's anonymous contributions on 

 geographical subjects, immediately preceding his two eloquent 

 addresses to this Society,* I may advert to his lively account of 

 Castren's Travels among the Lapps, in which he justly eulogised that 

 enterprising Finn and his learned countryman AYallin, the successful 

 explorer of Arabia. In other fragments of periodical literature he 

 indicated his admiration and right estimation of engineering works 

 in the article on the Skerryvore Light-House, and again in a very 

 instructive Eeview of the progress in canalization, proceeding as it 

 did from the inheritor of the great Bridgewater Canal. 



Of his thorough acquaintance with the fine arts, Lord Ellesmere 

 has left pregnant evidences in the pages devoted to his estimate 

 of English artists, and to the elucidation of fresco painting. 

 Liberally employing his wealth in making well-chosen additions to 

 the gallery of paintings he inherited, he reared for their preservation, 

 and for the residence of his family, that palatial structure designed 

 by Sir C. Barry, which has scarcely a rival in our metropolis. 



A distinctive feature in the character of Lord Ellesmere was his 

 deep admiration of martial deeds. His veneration for the Duke of 

 AA'ellington-, founded upon a study of his campaigns, was matured 

 by a personal intimacy of many years, during which the great 

 Captain himself furnished the materials, which enabled our deceased 

 President to give to the world a clear and well-condensed account 

 of the battle of ^Vaterloo. 



The spirited sketch of the life of Blucher, the ' Marshall Yor- 

 warts ' of the Prussian soldiery, written in 1842,'|" was followed in 

 1845 by a luminous analysis of the French and English versions of 

 the battle which decided the fate of Napoleon. J On these writings, 

 coming as the chief matter in them did /rom Wellington himself, im- 

 plicit reliance may be placed ; and few historians, I venture to 

 say, will improve upon the style in which the reminiscences of 

 the illustrious Commander were conveyed to the public by our 

 deceased Associate. In all such writings, whether he went back to 

 the days of Wallenstein,§ or traced the struggling career of the old 



* See Journal Roy. Geogr. Sec, vols, xxiii., xxiv. 

 t Quarterly Review, vol. Ixx. J lb., vol. Ixxvi. 



§ lb., vol. Ixi., p. 105. 



