Roi/al Society. 523 



profession, which he followed, during a great part of his life, with 

 no inconsiderable reputation. He became a medical student of 

 Caius College in 1Y87, and was elected to a fellowship in 1793 and 

 to the mastership in 1803, the late illustrious Dr. WoUaston being 

 one of his competitors. One of the first acts of his administration 

 was to open his College to a more large and liberal competition, by 

 the abolition of some mischievous and unstatutable restrictions, 

 which had been sanctioned by long custom, and also by making acade- 

 mical merit and honours the sole avenue to college preferment : and 

 he lived to witness the complete success of this wise and liberal 

 measure, in the rapid increase of the number of high academical 

 honours which were gained by members of his College, and by 

 the subsequent advancement of many of them to the highest pro- 

 fessional rank and eminence. 



Some years after his accession to the mastership, he took holy 

 orders and commuted the degree of Doctor in Medicine for that of 

 Theology, and in later life he was collated to some considerable ec- 

 clesiastical preferments. Dr. Davy had no great acquaintance Avith 

 the details of accurate science, but he was remarkable for the extent 

 and variety of his attainments in classical and general literature ; 

 his conversation was eminently lively and original, and not less agree- 

 able from its occasional tendency to somewhat paradoxical, though 

 generally harmless speculations. He died in May last, after a long 

 illness, deeply lamented by a large circle of friends, to whom he was 

 endeared by his many social and other virtues. 



Dr. Herbert Marsh, Bishop of Peterborough, and one of the most 

 acute and learned theologians of his age, became a member of St. 

 John's College in the University of Cambridge in the year 1775 and 

 took his B.A. degree in 1779, being second in the list of Wranglers, 

 which was headed by his friend and relation Mr. Thomas Jones, a 

 man whose intellectual powers were of the highest ordei', and who 

 for many years filled the office of tutor of Trinity College with un- 

 equalled success and reputation. Soon after his election to a fellow- 

 ship, he went to Germany, where he devoted himself during many 

 years to theological and general studies, and first became known to 

 the public as the translator and learned commentator of Michaelis's 

 Introduction to the New Testament. It was during his residence 

 abroad that he published in the German language various tracts in 

 defence of the policy of his own country in the continental wars, and 

 more particularly a very elaborate " History of the Politics of Great 

 - Britain and France, from the time of the Conference at Pilnitz to the 

 Declaration of War," a work which produced a marked impression 

 on the state of public opinion in Germany, and for which he re- 

 ceived a very considerable pension on the recommendation of 

 Mr. Pitt. In 1807, he was elected Lady Margaret's Professor of 

 Divinity in the University of Cambridge, an appointment of great 

 value and importance, which he retained for the remainder of his life. 

 On the resumption of his residence in the University, he devoted 

 himself with great diligence to the preparation of his lectures on 

 various important branches of Divinity, interposing a great number 

 of occasional publications on the Catholic Question, the Bible So- 



