PRESIDENTIAL ADDEESSES 141 



Of the final address, delivered on November 30, 1878, he 

 writes to Darwin, October 4 : 



My Address for Eoyal is nowhere. I have not thought 

 of a word for it, and every time I try, it makes my head and 

 heart ache. One's last Address ought to be good. I have 

 this last half-hour (moved thereto by your letter) maundered 

 over the matter and written to De la Eue for some informa- 

 tion relative to Electric discharges apropos of Spottiswoode's 

 researches. Hitherto I have not (like my predecessors) 

 sponged on my Fellows for matter for my Addresses. Now 

 I must, if, as I am advised, I am to give a resume of some 

 of the advances in Physical and Biological Sciences that 

 have rendered the Society's labours noteworthy during my 

 Presidentship. Would Frank 1 give me some crude data 

 in reference to your and his labours ? and as to what they 

 point to ? I would work them up. Pray do not allude 

 to it to him if you think better not. I should like to give 

 a short analysis of the question of biogenesis and so forth, 

 but it makes me giddy to think of it. I shall consult the 

 godlike Huxley on this. I must keep off controversial 

 questions. 



And again after the address had been delivered (December 

 14): 



I am immensely gratified with your praise of the Address, 

 which I was most anxious about, and feared would be a 

 failure. I have to thank Frank for the gist of the story 

 about your works, and Dyer gave me great help in vegetable 

 Physiology the rest cost me a deal of coaching up. I 

 left out the Palaeontology because I dosed them with it in 

 last year's Address and I could not grapple with Zoology 

 in the time and space. I felt very sorry to leave the Chair, 

 but the relief is very great. 



In 1875 also a successful experiment was made by holding 

 two evening receptions of a less formal character than the 

 annual conversazione, in order to bring the Fellows together 

 socially. Popularity, however, has its drawbacks, and of the 

 more formal gathering in 1874 he tells Asa Gray that it was 



1 (Sir) F. Dprwin, who was working with his father, and especially extending 

 research among carnivorous plants. 



