and Proceedings of the late President of the Royal Society. 245 



place on the question of the treatment experienced by Dr. Hut- 

 ton. Governor Pownall made a motion, which was seconded by 

 Mr. Glenie, "That if Dr.Hutton hath been, in the opinion of any 

 member of the Society, criminated, it is the opinion of the So- 

 ciety that he hath fully justified himself." This motion was 

 carried by 49 against 13. In subsequent meetings the great 

 room of the Society became the arena for regular debate: Ca- 

 vendish, Anguish, Horsley, Maskelyne, Maseres, Poore, Glenie, 

 IVutson, Maty, Lord Mulgrnve, and others, took their parts in 

 the several debates; some with considerable talent, eloquence, 

 and calmness ; others with talent, but with unbecoming impe- 

 tuosity. As the discussions proceeded, it was found that Sir 

 Joseph was daily losing strength ; so tliat there would have been 

 no difficulty in removing him from his office. But just at this 

 crisis of affairs, it was perceived that Dr. Horsley began to aspire 

 to the Presidency. He was a man of real and varied talent ; and 

 in some respects of profound knowledge ; but in violence of tem- 

 per he was nearly, if not quite, on a par with Sir Joseph: hence 

 • it was thought better to let Sir Joseph remain in his place, than 

 to remove one despot to make way for another. Dr. Hutton, 

 therefore, and several of his friends, retired from the Society, 

 leaving " the President with his train of feeble amateurs, and the 

 toy upon the table," to maintain the honour of the Institution 

 as well as they might be able, after the secession of the bulk of 

 their most celebrated members. 



Hutton, Maskelyne, Horsley, and others who retired on that 

 occasion, did not, therefore, discontinue to devote themselves to 

 science. Horsley, being soon after {i.e. in 1788) made a bishop, 

 directed his attention more exclusively to theology, having passed, 

 indeed, from his controversial proceedings in the Roval Society, 

 to those in which he engaged with Dr. Priestley. But Hutton 

 and Maskelyne continued with unabated ardour to promote 

 science and philosophy in the departments which they had re- 

 spectively chosen; Hutton as an active conductor of experiments 

 and a most sedulous and successful author on mathematical sub- 

 jects in all their variety, carrying on at the same time a more ex- 

 tensive correspondence with mathematicians at home and abroad 

 than any other man in England; Maskelyne as an unwearied ob- 

 server of the heaven*;, and as the superintendent and director of 

 the Nautical Almanac, an important work, to which he gave a 

 correctness altogether unequalled in any similar publication, or 

 even in that, since it has fallen into other hands. 



Although, however, these distinguished individuals quitted the 

 Society for the sake <)( peace, they were not permitted to remain 

 in peace. The President continued for years to annoy them 

 with a petty but inextinguishable malignity. His opposition to 



Dr. 



