278 Royal Society^ 



great independence of character, and he was universally respected 

 in the great manufacturing city in which he resided, for his great pro- 

 fessional skill and services, and for the active support which he gave 

 to every benevolent and useful institution. 



Sir John Soane received his early architectural education under 

 Mr. Dance and Mr. D. Holland, and was afterwards sent, by the 

 especial bounty of King George the Third, as a student of the Royal 

 Academy, to pursue his professional studies at Rome. After his 

 return he gradually obtained extensive employment, both as an ar- 

 chitect and a surveyor, and finally succeeded in securing almost 

 every important and honourable appointment which is connected 

 with the exercise of his profession in this country. In later life, when 

 in possession of an ample fortune and public honours, he became a 

 most munificent patron of public institutions, and more particu- 

 larly of those which are connected with the advancement of the fine 

 arts; and in 1835 he bequeathed his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 

 and the magnificent collection of works of art which it contained, to 

 the nation, and secured the accomplishment of this noble project 

 by an Act of Parliament ; he continued to pursue his usual course 

 of public munificence until his death, which took place on the 20th 

 of January last, in the 84th year of his age. 



Sir John Soane was profoundly acquainted with the great prin- 

 ciples of his art, and many of the interiors as well as exteriors of 

 his buildings are remarkable for skilful construction and for rich and 

 harmonious effects; but he was unfortunately disposed, in some cases, 

 to seek for novelty rather in new forms and decorations of architec- 

 tural members, than for originality in the combination of those 

 which have been sanctioned by the concurrent voice of the most 

 cultivated of ancient nations and the greatest masters of modern 

 art ; it is for this reason that many of his works appear somewhat 

 capricious and extravagant, and fail to produce that undefinable 

 feeling of pleasure and satisfaction which always attends the contem- 

 plation of those great productions of architecture which have been 

 celebrated for correct proportions, or for beautiful and appropriate 

 decoration. 



In connexion with this distinguished professor and patron of art, 

 I feel myself called upon to allude to the name of the venerable 

 Earl of Egremont, whose very recent loss we have to deplore. He 

 was a nobleman distinguished by his active yet discriminating be- 

 nevolence, and by his princely use of a princely fortune ; but it is as 

 a judge and patron of art that his loss will be most severely felt 

 beyond the precincts of his own family and the numerous poor who 

 were the immediate partakers of his bounty. He was equally ju- 

 dicious in the selection of subjects for artists to execute, and liberal 

 in rewarding them when done. 



Mr. J. D. Broughton, Surgeon of the Life Guards, had served 

 with great distinction as a medical officer during a great part of the 

 Peninsular war and at Waterloo. He was an eminent physiologist, 

 and devoted a great portion of his time and attention to the study 

 and improvement of the science of medical jurisprudence, and more 



