[38] 



V. Memoir of the late Francis Baily, Esq.^ F.R.S.^ Sfc, Pre- 

 sident of the Astronomical Society. By Sir J. F. W. Her- 

 SCHEL, Bart.* 



At a Special General Meeting of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society, held November 8, 1844, called in pursuance of a Re- 

 solution of the Council on the 20tli of September last, 

 G. B. Airy, Esq., President, in the Chair, 

 Sir J. F. W . Herschel read the following Memoir : — 



TN the performance of the melancholy duty imposed on me 

 -^ by the wishes of the Council, that I should endeavour, on 

 this occasion, to place before the assembled Members of this 

 Society a sketch of the scientific life and character of our late 

 lamented President, I have been careful both to examine my 

 own competency to the task, and to consider well the proper 

 limits within which to confine myself in its execution. In the 

 first of these respects, indeed, though tolerably familiar with 

 some of the leading subjects which I shall have to touch upon, 

 there are others on which I have seriously felt the want of a 

 longer interval for preparation. On these, of course, I shall 

 take care to express myself with becoming diffidence, and in 

 so vast a field of laborious inquiry and of minute, yet import- 

 ant research as I shall have to range over, it may easily be 

 supposed I have more than once found occasion to wish that 

 the duty had fallen into abler hands. A duty, however, it is, 

 and a very sacred one, which we owe to departed merit, to 

 society and to ourselves, to fix as speedily as possible, while 

 its impress is yet fresh and vivid upon us, its features in our 

 minds with all attainable distinctness and precision, and to 

 store them up beyond the reach of change and the treachery 

 of passing years. 



As respects the limits within which I feel it necessary to 

 confine myself on this occasion, it is to astronomers to whom 

 I have to speak of an astronomer — to members of a large and, 

 in the simplicity of truth I may add, a highly efficient public 

 body — of an officer to whom more than to any other indivi- 

 dual, living or dead, it owes the respect of Europe. To make 

 what I have to say complete as a biography, however interest- 

 ing to us all, however desirable in itself, is very far either from 

 my intention or my power. Nor is the time fitting for the 

 attempt. The event is too recent, the particulars which can 

 be collected at the present moment too scanty, the grief of sur- 

 viving relations too fresh, to admit of that sort of close and 

 pertinacious inquiry into facts, anecdotes, documents and evi- 

 dence, which personal biography requires to be satisfactory. 



* From the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society for 

 November 8, 1844, No. 10, vol. vi. 



