1 48 Royal Society. 



an acquaintance with the higher branches of Analysis, and their ap- 

 plication to Physical Astronomy. His successor, Gentlemen, is well 

 known to you, and needs no eulogium of mine ; but I cannot omit 

 the opportunity which is now offered to me of congratulating the 

 friends of astronomy and of science on the appointment of a gen- 

 tleman to this most important office, who is second to none in this 

 country in his great attainments in almost every department of accu- 

 rate science, in his indefatigable and systematic industry, in his high 

 sense of public duty, and in his profound knowledge both of physical 

 and of practical astronomy. 



The names which I shall next bring before your notice are those 

 of three men, venerable alike for their great age and public services, 

 and who must always be regarded as entitled to hold a distinguished 

 place amongst that illustrious body of great men, who have been pro- 

 duced or brought forward by the important trusts, the varied employ- 

 ments, and, let me add likewise, the great rewards of our Indian empire ; 

 I mean Sir Charles Wilkins, Mr. Marsden, and Captain Horsburgh. 



Sir Charles Wilkins went to India in 1770, and was the first 

 Englishman who thoroughly mastered the difficulties of the Sanscrit 

 language, of the classical works in which he published several 

 translations, and smoothed the obstacles to its attainment by a noble 

 grammar, which he composed for the especial benefit of the 

 students of the East India college at Hayleybury, of which he was 

 the oriental visitor and examiner from the period of its first esta- 

 blishment. He formed with his own hand the matrices of the first 

 Bengali and Persian types which were used in Bengal, and he was 

 the chief agent, in conjunction with Sir William Jones, in the esta- 

 blishment of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, whose labours have 

 contributed so greatly to the advancement of our knowledge of the 

 languages and general condition of the provinces of our Eastern 

 empire. It is now more than fifty years since he returned to this 

 country, in possession of a competent fortune and vigorous health, 

 which he continued to enjoy, in conjunction with every social and 

 domestic comfort, with hardly any interruption, to the day of his 

 death. Sir Charles Wilkins was appointed, in 1 800, Librarian of the 

 great collection of Oriental MSS., which are preserved in the India 

 iHouse ; and this Society is indebted to him for the catalogue and 

 description of the Sanscrit and other Oriental MSS., which were 

 presented to it by Sir William and Lady Jones. 



Sir Charles Wilkins w£is the father-in-law of Mr. Marsden, 

 though nearly his cotemporary in age. They went to the East about 

 the same time, and whilst one devoted himself to the study of the 

 languages and literature of the ancient and modern inhabitants of 

 continental India, the other availed himself of his position on the great 

 island of Sumatra and the Malayan peninsula, to gain a thorough ac- 

 quaintance with the present condition and past history of that activeand 

 adventurous race, whose character has been so deeply and so generally 

 impressed upon the languages and customs of nearly all the tribes who 

 inhabit the innumerable islands of the Indian Archipelago and of the 

 Pacific Ocean. His account of Sumatra, which appeared soon after his 



