Many, if not all, the articles on meteorology in * Rees's Cyclopaedia/ were 

 written by Luke Howard. He contributed a series of papers to the 

 'Athenaeum,' embodying the results of his meteorological observations 

 from the year 1806; and these he published in two volumes (1818-20), 

 under the title " Climate of London, deduced from Meteorological Observa- 

 tions made in the Neighbourhood." This, republished in 1833, in three 

 volumes, has become one of our standard works on meteorology. 



Luke Howard was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1821. 

 From that time his reputation as a meteorologist increased, and eminent 

 persons in many parts of the world opened a correspondence with him, 

 which, in some instances, became the initiation of a lasting friendship. 

 Although the increasing perfection of philosophical apparatus has super- 

 seded some of his methods of observation, there can be no doubt that his 

 labours imparted more of a scientific character to meteorology than it had 

 ever received before. His classification of the clouds is the one still recog- 

 nized at all observatories, and remains an evidence of the quick eye he had 

 for form and colour, and of the daily labour which was to him a labour of 

 love. One who knew him well in the latter part of his life, says, " Those 

 who lived with him will not soon forget his interest in the appearance of 

 the sky. "Whether at morning, noon, or night, he would go out to look 

 around on the heavens, and notice the changes going on. His intelligent 

 remarks and pictorial descriptions gave a character to the scene never 

 before realized by some. A beautiful sunset was a real and intense delight 

 to him ; he would stand at the window, change his position, go out of 

 doors, and watch it to the last lingering ray ; and long after he ceased, 

 from failing memory, to name the ' cirrus,' or ' cumulus,' he would derive a 

 mental feast from the gaze, and seem to recognize old friends in their 

 outlines." 



Sharing in the active beneficence so characteristic of the Society of 

 Friends, Luke Howard readily aided endeavours for the religious and 

 moral as well as the material welfare of the community. Not least im- 

 portant among these was the seeking to mitigate by pecuniary means the 

 sufferings of the Germans during the campaigns immediately preceding the 

 first abdication of Napoleon. In Ackworth School a well-known esta- 

 blishment of the Friends he took a lively interest; and to participate 

 the more directly therein, as well as to offer hospitality to the annual 

 visitors to the school, he bought the Ackworth Villa estate in 1823, 

 making it his summer residence, and Tottenham his winter residence, 

 during the greater part of his life. 



In 1796 Luke Howard married Mariabella Eliot, a member of the same 

 Society with which he was himself connected. Of their family of seven 

 children two sons only survived their parents. About his eightieth year 

 he was much enfeebled by alarming attacks of illness ; and the death of 

 his wife following, after a union of fifty-six years, added sorrow to his 



