808 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1887, 



significant way. For I am old enough to have taken 

 my earliest lessons in chemistry just at the time when 

 the atomic theory of Dalton was propounded and was 

 taught in the text-books as the latest new thing in 

 science. Some years earlier, Washington Irving, in 

 his Sketch-book, had hallowed to our youthful minds 

 the name of Roscoe, making it the type of all that 

 was liberal, wise, and gracious. And when I came to 

 know something of botany, I found that this exem- 

 plar as well as patron of good learning had, by his 

 illustrations of monandrian plants, taken rank among 

 the patres conscripti of the botany of that day. 



" The name so highly honored then we now honor 

 in the grandson. And I am confident that I express 

 the sentiments of your foreign guests whom I repre- 

 sent, when I simply copy the words of your president 

 in 1842, now reproduced in the opening paragraph of 

 the address of the president of 1887, transferring, as 

 we fitly may, the application from the earlier to the 

 later Manchester chemist. 



" ' Manchester is still the residence of one whose 

 name is uttered with respect wherever science is culti- 

 vated, who is here to-night to enjoy the honors due to 

 a long career of persevering devotion to knowledge.' 



" I cannot continue the quotation without material 

 change. ' That increase of years to him has been but 

 increase of wisdom,' may, indeed be said of Roscoe 

 no less than of Dalton ; but we are happy to know 

 that we are now contemplating not the diminished 

 strength of the close, but the manly vigor of the mid- 

 course of a distinguished career. Long and prosper- 

 ously may it go on from strength to strength. 



" In general, praise of the address which we have 

 had the pleasure of hearing would not be particularly 



