74- Memoir of the late Francis Baily, Esq., FM.S.^ ^c. 



and without bustle. He hit, better than any chairman I have 

 ever seen, the mean between strictness and laxity, and, while 

 he kept everything going in its proper channel, he also kept 

 everybody in good humour. This natural tact was a great 

 gift, but there was another quality which I never saw in any 

 one but him, and that was his readiness to give precedence 

 and room to every one who wished to do anything useful, and 

 his equal readiness to supply every deficiency and do the work 

 of everybody else. He was also the person who never was 

 asleep and never forgot anything, and who contrived by his 

 good humour, hospitality and good sense, to keep everything 

 in train." To much of this view, as a matter of general cha- 

 racter, I have given my own independent expression, but I 

 could not deny myself the satisfaction of corroborating my 

 own judgement by that of one so well qualified, from intimate 

 knowledge, to form opinions. 



Mr. Baily, as I have already stated, was a member of the 

 Royal, Geological, and Linnaean Societies, to which 1 may 

 also add, the Royal Irish Academy. In the Royal Society 

 his eminence as an astronomer and a man of general science 

 made his presence valuable, and the universal respect in which 

 he was held gave him much influence. He filled in that body 

 the office of Vice-President for six years, of Treasurer for 

 three, and was fifteen times elected on the Council. I have 

 already mentioned two of the three papers he contributed to 

 its ' Transactions.' The third contains a minute account of 

 the standard barometer of that Society, fixed up in their apart- 

 ments in the year 1837, in which he enters into every parti- 

 cular of its construction, mode of registry, and corrections : it 

 was read on the 16th of November, 1837. He was also one 

 of the earliest members of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 and took a very active part in its establishment. , He was also 

 a member and one of the trustees of the British Association, 

 at whose meetings he was an occasional attendant, and acted, 

 as we have seen, on some important committees. In 1835 the 

 University of Dublin conferred on him the honorary title of 

 Doctor of Civil Law, as I have already stated was also done 

 by Oxford in 1844. Among the foreign Academies, which 

 m honouring him honoured themselves, I find him to have 

 been a correspondent of the Royal Institute of Sciences of 

 Paris, and of the Royal Academies of Berlin, Naples, and 

 Palermo, as well as the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences at Boston. 



His portrait by Phillips, presented by some Fellows of the 

 Society, has long adorned, and, though for the present re- 

 moved from its frame, will sjieedily again adorn our meeting- 



