ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 149 



legislative enactment which established the Gregorian year in England in 1752, 

 shortened the preceding year (1751) by a full quarter. Previously the eccle- 

 siastical and legal year was held to begin with the 25th March, and the year 

 A. D. 1751 did so accordingly ; that year, however, was not suffered to run 

 out, but was supplanted on the 1st of January by the year 1752, which it was 

 enacted should commence on that day, as well as every subsequent year."* 



The attcm])t to retrace here, even in the most summary manner, the philo- 

 sophical labors of the Society would suggest a start' ing contrast between the 

 narrow limits allotted to this outline and the vast field which it would be neces- 

 sary to tra^■erse. How mere a catalogue of names and of terms would be the 

 result of any attempt to recall those achievements in every department of 

 natural science which have distanced imagination and rendered the fictions of 

 poetry tame and spiritless in comparison ! Especially would this be the case 

 as we approached that wonderful era of discovery, the close of the eighteenth 

 century, which suggested to Cuvier the imposing retrospect with which he 

 opens the Elogc of Ilaiiy: "The laws of a geometry, as concise as compre- 

 hensive, extended over the entire heavens ; the boundaries of the universe en- 

 larged, and its spaces peopled with unknown stars ; the courses of celestial 

 bodies determined more rigorously than ever, both in time and space ; the earth 

 weighed as in a balance; man soaring to the clouds or traversing the seas with- 

 out the aid of winds ; the intricate mysteries of chemistry referred to certain 

 clear and simple facts ; the list of natural existencies increased tenfold in every 

 species, and their relations irrevocably fixed by a survey as well of their in- 

 ternal as external structure ; the history of the earth, even in ages the most 

 remote, explored by means of its own monuments, and shown to be not less 

 wonderful in fact than it might have appeared to the wildest fancy : such is 

 the grand and unparalleled spectacle which it has been our privilege to con- 

 template !"f And in the realization of each and all of these surprising results 

 the Iloyal Society of London has borne its effective part, yielding to none in 

 the reflected lustre of its long line of brilliant names : its Herschels, Bradleys, 

 Maskclynes, Youngs, Priestleys, Daltons, Watts, Wollastons, Davys, Buck- 

 lands, Murchisons, Faradays, and Airys. For, as the illustrious savant just 

 quoted has elsewhere said with equal force and generosity, " The philosophers 

 of England have taken as glorious a part as those of any nation whatever in 

 the labors of the intellect Avhich are the common heritage of the civilized world ; 

 they have dared the ices of either pole, nor is there any nook of the two oceans 

 which they have not visited ; they have multiplied tenfold the catalogue of the 

 kingdoms of nature ; by them the heavens have been made populous with 

 planets, satellites, and stupendous phenomena ; they have counted, so to say, 

 the stars of the galaxy ; if chemistry has assumed a new face, the facts whTch 

 they have furnished have essentially contributed to the transformation; to them 

 we are indebted for inflammable air, pure aav, phlogisticated air; they have dis- 

 covered the decomposition of water ; new metals in large number have sprung 

 from their analyses ; by them only has the nature of the fixed alkalies been 

 demonstrated ; finally, at their voice, mechanics has become pregnant with 

 miracles, and placed their country above all others in nearly every species of 

 productive industry.''^ 



* Herscliel's Astronomy, p. 413. So ^rcat was the popular repugnance to the changje of the 

 style or calendar, that the mob pursued the minister in his carriage, clamoring i'or the days 

 by which, as they supposed, their lives had been shortened ; and the illness and deatii of the 

 astronomer Biadley, who had assisted the government with his advice, was attributed to a 

 judgment iVom heaven. It is also related that wlieu the grandson of Lord Macclesfield, who 

 had likewise been prominent in effecting the change of style, was standing a contested elec- 

 tion for Oxford, the mob insultingly called out to him, "Give us back, you rascal, those 

 eleven days which your grandfather stole from us." — Wdd. 



t See Smithsonian Report, 1660, Memoir of Haily. 



t Cuvier, Eloge of Sir Joseph Baulis. 



