Alfred Russel Wallace 



To which the Dean replied : 



The Deanery, Westminster, S.W. December 2, 1913. 



Dear Mr. Marchant, — I have pleasure in informing you 

 that I presented your petition at our Chapter meeting this 

 morning, and a glad and unanimous assent was accorded 

 to it. 



I should be glad later on to be informed as to the artist 

 you are employing; and probably it would be as well for 

 him and you and some members of the Royal Society to 

 meet me and the Chapter and confer together upon the 

 most suitable and artistic arrangement or rearrangement 

 of the medallions of the great men of science of the nine- 

 teenth century. 



Nothing could have been more satisfactory or impressive 

 than the document with which you furnished me this morn- 

 ing. I hope to get it specially framed. — Yours sincerely, 



Herbert E. Ryle. 



Mr. Bruce-Joy, who had made an excellent medallion 

 of Dr. Wallace during his lifetime, accepted the commis- 

 sion to fashion the medallion for Westminster Abbey, and 

 it was unveiled, by a happy but undesigned coincidence, 

 on All Souls' Day, November 1, 1915, together with medal- 

 lions to the memory of Sir Joseph Hooker and Lord Lister. 

 In the course of his sermon, the Dean said — and with these 

 words we may well conclude this book : 



" To-day there are uncovered to the public view, in the 

 North Aisle of the Choir, three memorials to men who, I 

 believe, will always be ranked among the most eminent 

 scientists of the last century. They passed away, one in 

 1911, one in 1912, and one in 1913. They were all men of 

 singularly modest character. As is so often observable 

 in true greatness, there was in them an entire absence of 

 that vanity and self-advertisement which are not infrequent 

 with smaller minds. It is the little men who push them- 

 selves into prominence through dread of being overlooked. 



254 



