LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. Xill 
now speaking, was the removal of the Society from its old home 
in Soho Square to our present commodious and most desirable 
location; and in connexion with this important movement, our 
close approximation to the Royal Society, and the increased inter- 
course which we have enjoyed with that body since our juxta- 
position. I think I may venture to say that all our most sanguine 
expectations, as to the advantages and pleasures of that relation, 
have been amply fulfilled” We have now enjoyed four years of 
prosperous occupation here, and in addition to the pecuniary 
advantage of immunity from rent, the increased accommodation 
in regard to space, and the greater convenience and beauty of our 
rooms, the success which has resulted from these circumstances 
in the scientific prestige which the Society has acquired, the great 
addition to our numbers and the increased extent and higher 
character of our publications, has shown how important to our 
welfare was the change which we then effected. This advantage 
has not, however, been enjoyed without an occasional cloud of doubt 
as to the duration of our occupancy ; and it will be in the recollec- 
tion of some present that I felt myself called upon in the year 
1859 to allude in a particular manner to the proposals which were 
made, and which there was every reason to expect would be car- 
ried out, to cover the site of Burlington House and the vacant 
ground behind it, with buildings destined for the mingled occu- 
pancy of Government Offices, of Scientific Societies, and of the 
Royal Academy, and other institutions connected with art. This 
scheme is, for the present at least, abandoned; and we shall pro- 
bably be left in undisturbed possession of our present abode for 
many years to come. The Royal Academy, by the recent extensive 
improvements in the present galleries, appear to have given up 
any idea of removing, and we shall be spared the threatened ab- 
surdity of the appropriation of the whole area in front of Burling- 
ton House, including the site of the present matchless colonnade, 
as a stand for carriages, useful only during the brief period of the 
Academy’s annual exhibition. 
If, however, the memorial of the last eight years present us with 
a general result of almost unprecedented prosperity, that period 
has been no less conspicuous in our history for the number and 
the melancholy importance of our losses by death. 
In a Society so numerous as ours we must, according to the 
invariable statistics of mortality, annually have to lament the loss 
of many of our number, notwithstanding the length of life and 
of membership by which our list is distinguished, I believe, beyond 
