460 Roi/al Society. 



twelve o'clock, when the President Sir H. Davy, Bart, took 

 the chair. In the course of business, in announcing the names 

 of tlie Fellows lost to the Society during the last year, amongst 

 whom were Sir H. C. Englefield, Sir William Herschel, 

 Dr. jNIai-cet, Professor Vince, Dr. Parry, and M. Delambre ; 

 the Abbe Haiiy and Count BerthoUet on the Foreign list ; 

 the learned President gave a new interest to this ceremony 

 by entering into a short detail of the scientific merits of those 

 distinguished persons. 



He prefaced his eulogies by saying, that the occasion was 

 a particular o'le; that the Society had never before in one 

 year lost so many distinguished Fellows by death ; that the 

 respect paid to the memory of the illustrious dead might, he 

 hoped, awaken a feeling of ennilation amongst the living; 

 and that, though he v.as unabie to do justice to their respective 

 merits, yet he trusted that in all he said the judgement and 

 the feelings of the Society would be in unison with his ov/n. 



He spoke of Sir H. Englefield as an accomplished gentle- 

 man, gifted with a great variety of information, possessing a 

 considerable knowletlge of astronomy, and talents ibr physical 

 researches; a clear writer; a learned antiquarian; as eminently 

 distinguished for conversational pov.'ers ; as a truly honest man, 

 and an ornament to the class of society in v.-hich he moved. 



Of Sir William Hei'schel Sir Humphry said, that the pro- 

 gress of modern astronomy was so coimected with his labours 

 that his name would live as long as that science existed. He 

 spoke of his happy and indefatigable spirit of observation, as 

 proved by his discoveries of a new planetary system, and of a 

 number of satellites before unknown ; of his inductive powers 

 of reasoning, and bold imagination, as shown in his views of 

 the system of the heavens ; and of liis talents for pliiloso})hical 

 experiments, as proved by the discovery of the invisible rays in 

 the solar spectrum. " Sn- William Herschel," said the learned 

 President, " was a man who, though raised by his own efforts, 

 by the power of his own intellect, to so high a degree of emi- 

 nence, was spoiled neither by glory nor by fortune, and re- 

 tained under all circumstances the native simplicity of his 

 mind." He dwelt at some length on his amiable character, and 

 on the felicity of h'v life; remarking that he died full of years 

 and of honours ; and that when unable to labour himsellj he saw 

 a kindred disposition and powers dis])layed by his son. 



Sir Humphry then regretted the premature death of 

 Dr. Marcet, whom he characterized as an ingenious and ac- 

 curate chemist, a learned physician, a liberal, enlightened and 

 most amiable man. He likewise gave short characters of 

 Dr. Vince, Plumian Professor at Cambridge ; o^ Dr. Parry, 

 and Sir Christopher Pegg. Jn 



