248 Josiah Wedgwood CHAP. 



We attend the Club (Athenian 1 ) with tolerable regu- 

 larity. Hodgson makes punch and talks politics ; 

 Griffiths drinks it and makes jokes ; but we all look 

 out for your assistance. 



"We have had a series of disputes at the Eoyal 

 Society, which have employed us fully from Christmas 

 to Easter. Now, however, the disaffected, at least the 

 active ones, who were at first forty-seven, are reduced 

 to two. I think we have a fair prospect of peace 

 returning, which, too, is likely to be permanent. 



" We have no signs of spring here, not a shade of 

 green on a hedge or a gooseberry bush unfolded. This 

 day, however, cloudy and rainy with wind ; never- 

 theless, the thermometer rises a good symptom. 

 Yours faithfully, Jos. BANKS." 



In a letter to Dr. Priestley, then at Paris, Wedgwood 

 says (2nd September 1791): "M. Lavoisier has sent 

 for two of my thermometers, which I have accordingly 

 forwarded to him. M. Seguin says : We find this 

 instrument of the greatest use, and at this moment we 

 feel more than ever its indispensability, because we are 

 employing ourselves (M. Lavoisier and I) in completing 

 the theory of furnaces of fusion, but we are still in 

 need of some instructions, which we pray you to be 

 pleased to give us." 



Wedgwood's papers to the Eoyal Society were trans- 

 lated into French, Dutch, and other foreign languages. 

 Indeed, Wedgwood had as great a scientific and artistic 



1 Of which Mr. Wedgwood was the father, or oldest member. 



