242 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS. [May 23, 1859. 



mine will, doubtless, pay just tributes to bis memory, tbougb no 

 one of his friends entertained a deeper regard for him than myself. 



Disdaining to court popularity, and dealing sternly with those 

 whose writings or conduct savoured of untruthfulness, he possessed 

 at the same time as kind and as genial a nature as it was ever my 

 good fortune to estimate. Admiring his character throughout no 

 short space of time, I can fairly say that with everj' year my respect 

 for him increased. Whether I watched him and felt for him when 

 his strong mind was bowed down by those domestic afflictions which 

 succeeded each other in so lamentable a manner, or when, rising out 

 of his sorrows, he poured forth his terse and forcible conversation, 

 and was the charm of that social circle in which he shone, even 

 amidst such contemporaries as Sydney Smith or Samuel Eogers ; in 

 every trait of his life he won my regard, and invariably impressed 

 me with the sincerest esteem for his whole character. 



Having gained a wide renown as a man of letters, Mr. Hallam 

 had a real pleasure during the last quarter of a century in upholding 

 and supporting all those branches of knowledge, whether in science 

 or in art, which elevate humanity. Thus reverting to the mathe- 

 matical pursuits he had cultivated at Cambridge, he was elected 

 a Fellow of the Eoyal Society in 1821 ; and seeing how the then 

 new science of geology was opening out great and fundamental truths 

 of nature, he also willingly joined the Geological Society. In 1830 

 he was one of those who founded the Eoyal Geographical Society, 

 and having been more than once upon our Council, he invariably 

 afforded us his warmest support, and has often spoken to me in 

 commendation of our Journal. 



Among the numerous honours which were deservedly heaped 

 upon him by the various academies of Europe, there was no disr 

 tinction which Mr. Hallam justly valued more, than that of being 

 selected as the Historiographer of the Eoyal Academy of Arts of 

 this metropolis. Succeeded as he has worthily been in that post by my 

 eminent friend Mr. Grote, I may here be permitted to quote a few 

 words of the eloquent eulogium which at the last anniversary fes- 

 tival of the Eoyal Academy fell from the lips of the author of the 

 ' History of Greece,' as illustrative of the character of his great 

 predecessor : — 



" There lives in his chapters a conscientious sense of the almost 

 judicial obligation of an historian, the obligation of studying with 

 care original and contemporary authorities, but at the same time of 

 rising above contemporary prejudices, and of judging with equitable 



