1897. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 85 



respected and obtain that eclat, either at home or abroad which so 

 useful an institution deserves ; nor will the great end of the Society, 

 the promotion of science, be carried on with so much vigour, since it 

 is well known, that without the protection of the great, the arts and 

 sciences will always fade and languish. Your Lordship, I flatter 

 myself, will not be surprised, after what I have advanced, not without 

 .good grounds, of the sentiments of a great part of the Royal Society, 

 at my declaring myself one of many who earnestly wish your Lord- 

 ship would do us the honour to give us leave to mention your name 

 to the fellows of the Society at large, and canvass them, in order to 

 your nomination to be elected President of the Royal Society on 

 November 30th next. At present (although I have mentioned your 

 Lordship's name at a distance, to many fellows of the Society, and 

 found it always received with the utmost respect and attention), yet, 

 out of regard to your Lordship's delicacy, I have only apprised a very 

 few gentlemen of this address to your Lordship, viz., Mr. Daines 

 Harrington, Dr. Shepherd, Mr. Walsh, Dr. Warren, and Mr. Wegg, 

 Vice-President and Treasurer of the Society. We are fully satisfied, 

 that if your Lordship would but permit us to name you to our 

 Brethren of the Society, even without your Lordship appearing at all 

 in it yourself, if you did not choose ir, that there would not be the 

 least difficulty or obstacle to the gratification of our wishes, and the 

 fixing your Lordship in the President's chair on the day of the 

 election. We are the more induced to indulge our hopes that your 

 Lordship will honour us by acceding to our wishes, from the con- 

 sideration that your Lordship once actually accepted the office of 

 President before Sir John Pringle was nominated, and only declined 

 afterwards on account of the engagements of a busy office which your 

 Lordship then held — that of Secretary of State for the American 

 Department, which however having long since resigned, your Lord- 

 ship is now at leisure to accept an honourable office with some share 

 of business. We expect, in about a twelvemonth, to take possession 

 of the new and magnificent apartments which his Majesty has been 

 pleased to give us in the new erection on the old site of Somerset 

 House, which will be more agreeable to your Lordship, as well as to 

 the Society, than our present incommodious crowded house ; and 

 where we may expect to have our meetings attended by more persons 

 of rank and quality than heretofore. If the usual hours of the meet- 

 tings of the Society should be less convenient to your Lordship, they 

 might be altered either to a later hour, or to one before dinner, and 

 where it might not be convenient to your Lordship to attend at all, 

 the chair might be taken for the time by a Vice-President, who is 

 always of the President's nomination." 



It is interesting to note that the chief bait held out to the pro- 

 posed President is the " rank and quality " at the meetings ; and the 

 declaration of Maskelyne, one of the foremost men of his time, that 

 science then depended, as art always does, on the patronage of the great. 



