Bo7/al Society. 119 



by me. But before I touch upon other topics, I feel anxious to say 

 a few words upon my own position in the Society, and my views re- 

 specting it. 



The Chair of the Royal Society has been filled by a rare succes- 

 sion of illustrious men, and I feel proud that I have been judged 

 worthy, upon any grounds, to occupy a situation which lias become 

 dignified by its association with the names of those who have con- 

 ferred so much honour upon our country. It is indeed true that I 

 can enter into no competition with such predecessors, as respects 

 scientific knowledge, which my early education, my public occupa- 

 tions, and even the duties of my rank, have prevented me from cul- 

 tivatino- and attaining to that extent I could have wished : but I 

 should do no honour to your kindness, which has placed me in this 

 high and dignified station, if I shoukl profess that I considered my- 

 self wholly inadequate to the efficient discharge of many at least of 

 its public duties, or that I felt my occupation of this Chair was likely 

 to prove injurious either to the credit of the Society, or to the ad- 

 vancement of science. If such, indeed, Gentlemen, were my own 

 persuasion, I would not continue to fill this honourable post for 

 another hour. 



The ostensible duties, in fact, of your President, are chiefly mini- 

 sterial : he is your organ to ask and to receive your decisions upon 

 the various questions which are submitted to you ; and he is your 

 public voice to announce them. Though he presides at the meet- 

 ings of your Council, he possesses but one voice among many ; in- 

 currincr an equal responsibility in common with every one of its 

 members. He is your official representative in the administration 

 of the affairs of the British Museum : he presides in your name, by 

 virtue of your election of him, at the Board of Visitors of the Royal 

 Observatory, as appointed by His Majesty's Warrant : he is your 

 medium of communication with public bodies, and with the members 

 of the Government upon the various subjects important to the inter- 

 ests of science, which are either submitted to your consideration, or 

 which are recommended by you, through your Council, for the con- 

 sideration of others. For many of those functions I feel myself to 

 be somewhat prepared by my habits of life, as well as by my public 

 occupations : and for some of them more especially, if I may be 

 permitted to say so, by that very rank in which Providence has 

 placed me as a member of the Royal Family of this country ; for 

 though it would be most repugnant to my principles and my wishes 

 that the weight of my station should in any way influence the success 

 of an application which it was either improper to ask or inexpedient 

 to grant, I should feel it to be equally due to the dignity of this 

 Society and to my own, that the expression of your opinions and of 

 your wishes should experience both the respect and the prompt 

 attention to which it is so justly entitled. 



But while I should consider it my duty to exert the just authority 

 of an Fiigiish Prince in the assertion of your rights, and in the pro- 

 motion of the success of those objects which you may intrust to my 



advocacy 



