ATOMIC THEORY. 401 



fitly committed to Chantrey, whose genius rendered it a 

 wonderful work. While Dalton was in London sitting to 

 this great sculptor, it was suggested by his friend, Mr. Bab- 

 bage, that he should be presented at the King's levee. His 

 own acquiescence being obtained, the preliminaries of his 

 dress as an Oxford Doctor of Laws settled, and preparatory 

 instructions given by enacting the levee in a private room, he 

 was presented to William IV., who seems to have questioned 

 him with the kind familiarity which belonged to that sove- 

 reign's nature. Mr. Babbage, present with him on this 

 occasion, heard one court officer say to another, ( Who the 

 d 1 is the fellow whom the King keeps talking to so long ? ' 

 This gentleman would have been still more surprised had he 

 seen the Quaker garb concealed under the scarlet robe of the 

 University of Oxford. 



Dalton's life was continued ten years beyond this time, to 

 the age of 78 ; but we have little more to record. The last 

 few years formed a period of gradual but sensible decay in 

 his faculties both of mind and body, consequent upon a 

 paralytic seizure in 1837, followed in 1838 by a slighter attack 

 of the same nature. He did not die until 1844; but the 

 antecedents of the final change were on him before, and, for 

 some time at least, consciously so to himself. In 1840 he 

 presented a paper to the Royal Society on the phosphates and 

 arseniates; so obscure throughout, and the conclusions so 

 erroneous, that the Council declined its publication in the 

 Transactions. Dalton, much mortified, printed it separately 

 with the indignant comment annexed to it ' Cavendish, 

 Davy, Wollaston, and Gilbert are no more.' Even after this, 

 however, he published four short chemical essays ; but these 

 were probably the result of prior labours, since the last two 

 contain the elements of a dis.covery of so much interest, that 

 he himself says, ' It is the greatest discovery that I know 

 of, next to the atomic theory.' We may briefly denote the 



D D 



