KOYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 151 



'Wheu we reflect," says Mr. Weld, "on the benefits conferred on mankind 

 by the discoveries of modern science, Englishmen must feel an honest pride in 

 the fact that so large a proportion have emanated from the Fellows of the Royal 

 Society. Nor will that pride be diminished, when it is remembered that from 

 first to last the Society has received no annual pecuniary support from govern- 

 ment, nor assistance of any kind, beyond the grant of Chelsea College, shortly 

 after their incorporation, and more recently, the use of the apartments they now 

 occupy in Somerset House.* While the members of the French Institute re- 

 ceive a yearly stipend, the Fellows of the lloyal Society pay an annual sum for 

 the support of their institution and the advancement of science. It would be 

 repugnant to the feelings of Englishmen to submit to the regulations of the 

 Institute, which require official addresses, and the names of candidates for ad- 

 mission into their bod3% to be approved by government before the first are 

 delivered or the second elected. The French saran-s are, it is true, ennobled 

 and decorated by orders, which the wiser among them, in common Avitli true 

 philosophers of any country, regard with indiil'erence. Nobly did Fourier say 

 of Laplace : " Posterity, which has so many particulars to forget, will little cai'e 

 whether Laplace was for a short time minister of a great state. The eternal 

 truths which he has discovered, the immutable laws of the stability of the world, 

 are of importance, and not the rank which he occupied." 



As a consequence of this independence and self-support, it was necessary that 

 the Royal Society should be numerous, and by a consequence not less necessary, 

 as Cuvier remarks, " that, as in all political associations where the participation 

 of the citizens in the government is in inverse ratio to their number, those to 

 whom the Society intrusts its administration should exercise over its labors, and 

 to a certain extent over the course and progress of science, an influence more 

 considerable than can be readily conceived of by the academies of the conti- 

 nent." That the Society has been fortunate in the zeal and ability of those 

 callvd to jjresidc over it, will have been observed in the course of the preceding 

 sketch. It remains to be added that, on the death of Sir Joseph Banks, in 1820, 

 the chair was for a short time occupied by Dr. Wollaston,t followed in the same 

 year by Sir Ilumphrey Davy ; by Davies Gilbert, in 1827 ;f the Duke of Sus- 

 sex, in 1830 ; the Marquis of Northampton, in 1S3S ; Earl of Rosse, in 1849 ; 

 Lord Wrotteslcy, in 1854; Sir Benjamin Brodie, in 1858; and General Sabine, 

 in 1S61. The latter still worthily occupies the chair. 



As something has been said above of financial embarrassments at an earlier 

 period of the Society, it is gratifying to state, on the authority of Mr. Weld, 

 referring to the year 1848, that this condition of things is wholly changed; be- 

 sides certain tracts of laud, the Society then held in the public funds upAvards 

 of d£33,000 ; its incomcibeing derived from rents, dividends, annual subscriptions, 

 admission fees, compositions, and sale of Transacticms and Pro'seedings. The 

 number of Fellows, at the same date, was 821, of whom thirteen were honorary 

 and forty-seven foreign. The library of the Society, then containing upwards 

 of 40,000 volumes, is extremely rich in the best editions of scientific books. 

 Fellows are allowed to borrow books under certain regulations, though still more 

 use is made of the library for purposes of reference. 



The sessions of the Society commence in November and continue until June. 

 At the ordinary meetings, after the usual preliminary business, one of the sec- 

 retaries announces the pi'esents made to the Society, Avhich arc so numerous that 



* WbitLer the Society removed in 1780. 



t lu rcfcicnce to the extraordinary tact and acuteness of Wollaston as a physicist, it was 

 said by Magendie that "his hearing was so lino ho might have been thought to be blind, and 

 his sight so jjiercing he might have been sui)posed to be deaf." 



tMr. Gilbert will be remembered by Americans as having pronounced the eulogy on Smith 

 son, contained in the first Smithsonian Annual Keport. 



