vii WORK AT MANCHESTER 163 



President, and among other members I was selected 

 for the honour of a degree. I was unable to be present 

 at the time, but I went over to Dublin the following 

 year, and on January 2ist, 1878, the late Earl of 

 Dufferin, the Earl of Rosse, and I were the three 

 recipients of the honorary LL.D. The translation of 

 the Latin address to me written by the Senior Proctor 

 is as follows : 



PROFESSOR ROSCOE 



Right Hon. Vice-Chancellor and all the University (and 

 you especially, you young men, who are shouting so loud), 

 lend me your ears ! This college, according to her wont, 

 desires as a mark of honour to enroll among her graduates 

 three men, already overwhelmed with other honours. I 

 therefore present to you first a distinguished professor, 

 Henry Roscoe, a savant who has devoted himself completely 

 to chemistry, and who in that science has won the highest 

 honours. He, in the analysis of the sun, has shed on the 

 sun itself the light of science. Casting aside the false 

 images of Democritus, he has grasped the true images of 

 things. He has verified what with Lucretius was an empty 

 boast, 



" Sunt igitur jam formarum vestigia certa 

 Quae volgo volitant subtili praedita filo." 



Irish humour is proverbial, and Trinity College was 

 in this respect then fully represented. Sam Haughton 

 at one end of the table and Machaffy at the other in 

 the Combination Room drew each other out and a 

 brisk time we had of it. The one reverend gentleman 

 asked the other to relate how he operated on the 

 young lions in the Zoological Gardens. " Is it the 

 lions of the Association you mane ? If so, bring them 

 along and I will operate at once," was the reply. 



In June, 1878, I received an invitation from the 

 Prince of Wales, as President of the Royal Commission 

 for the English Section of the French Exhibition of 

 that year, to act as member of the jury for chemical 

 products. So in the autumn of that year, accompanied 



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