4-74- Notices respecting New Books. 



the fitness and utility of furnishing inquisitive minds with easy op- 

 portunities of communicating the progress and effects of their re- 

 spective researches, in what manner soever they may have been con- 

 ducted, or to whatever purpose theymayhave been originally intended. 

 Now the Society, which has largely, by these means, promoted the 

 advancement of knowledge, surely merits to be recorded as a benefi- 

 cial acquirement to the general public. 



Although the Royal Society has subsisted on the voluntary contri- 

 butions of its own members, it has not been without munificent gifts. 

 Among the earliest of these was the present of the celebrated Arun- 

 delian Library, consisting of several thousand printed volumes and 

 numerous manuscripts. On this occasion, it is whispered, that the 

 Society were as much obliged to Evelyn as to Mr. Howard, — but we 

 dislike looking a gift horse in the mouth. Other presents and con- 

 siderable benefactions have followed ; still Mr. Weld shows how often 

 the proceedings have been interrupted, and even the fraternity en- 

 dangered, by pecuniary difficulties. Indeed it is painful to notice 

 the loss and inconvenience even now occurring to the establishment 

 by the mean backwardness of some of its members in paying their 

 moderate subscription. Much pseudo-sentimentality has been ex- 

 pended on this topic, and we believe idly expended ; our own opinion 

 being, that it is those who can that won't pay ; and that in 98 cases 

 out of 100, the defaulter is more deficient in principle than purse, 

 and exercises sheer and prepense fraud. If a person is so pressed by 

 his circumstances that he cannot pay, surely he ought to resign ; 

 but such is only the exception to the rule of defaulting, and we think 

 that the energies of the laws have been allowed to slumber too long. 

 As to all those who wilfully cheat the Societies to which they have 

 signed obligations, we hold that they forfeit the character of gentle- 

 men in the act, and should be proceeded against. In the present day 

 the Councils have little excuse for allowing any losses of the kind, 

 since there is the ready aid of the County Courts, — the which, we 

 are happy to state, have just been appealed to with great success by 

 the Zoological Society. 



Constituted as the Royal Society is, a sort of democracy ruled by 

 an oligarchy, it is no marvel that there should be frequent " flares- 

 up;" and that they should so often have happened, the more 's the 

 pity. Mr. Weld gives a very fair statement of the most serious of 

 these, though he does not pronounce upon the animus of each ; still 

 his means of ascertaining and showing the interior management and 

 ceconomy of the Society, render him the best authority on the sub- 

 ject. One thing is clear, namely, that the medical men, who form 

 a legion, and the scarcely less numerous naturalists, are ever mighty 

 desirous of ruling the roast*. And a long run they had of it, when 



* A conclusion very different from that which is here adopted by the 

 esteemed friend to whom the editors are indebted for this interesting No- 

 tice seems to be warranted by Mr. Weld's account of these disputes, in 

 which a violent and domineering spirit seems not to have been evinced so 

 much by the Naturalists as by the opposite party, headed by Horsley, whose 

 conduct and motives appear in no favourable light. — R. T. 



