PREFACE. 



The Town of Liverpool, so justly celebrated for its 

 commercial enterprise, has not been wanting in those 

 pursuits by which the acquisition of wealth is dignified 

 and embellished. During the last century it produced 

 several men who were distinguished in the walks of 

 Literature and Science, and in the early part of the present 

 century those objects were most efficiently promoted by 

 various Associations, in which the late Dr. Currie and 

 Mr. Roscoe took a prominent part. In the year 1812, 

 ** The Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool" 

 was instituted, and elected for its first President the 

 Reverend Theophilus Houlbrooke. He was succeeded, 

 in the year 1817, by the accomplished biographer of 

 Lorenzo de'Medici and of Leo the Tenth, who continued 

 to occupy the chair until his lamented death, in June, 

 1831. The Secretary appointed at the first meeting was 

 Dr. Thomas S. Traill, by whom the functions of the 

 office were most ably performed until his election, in 1832, 

 to the Professorial Chair of Medical Jurisprudence in the 

 University of Edinburgh. 



The labours of the Society, ranging over the wide fields 

 of Science and Literature, have been not unfrequently 



