THE ROYAL SOCIETY 85 



justly observe) prevent your benevolent question from 

 being judged, is a matter which gives me pleasure occupied 

 even in the disagreeable task of conveying their refusal 

 to you. All nations in Europe abound with Academies 

 and Societies. Great Britain furnishes others beside us, 

 and few indeed of those numerous Bodies will, I believe, 

 be found to reject your offer, especially accompanied as 

 it is with the annexed emolument. 



" Accept therefore, Sir, my sincere wishes that you 

 may find Judges worthy the benevolence of your inten- 

 tion, and that mankind may in future ages remember 

 the benevolent author of it, with the gratitude that an act 

 so universally public-spirited, and so worthy of one who 

 really esteems himself a citizen of the world at large must 

 be considered to deserve/' 1 



Dr. Joseph Priestley to Sir Joseph Banks. 



" 72 ST. PAUL'S, April 25, 1790. 



" DEAR SIR, As I wish always to act with openness 

 and to avow the motives of my conduct, I cannot forbear 

 to express my great dissatisfaction at the conduct of the 

 Royal Society in the rejection of Mr. Cooper, recom- 

 mended by myself and four other members, all men of 

 science and of respectable character. There is not, I 

 believe, another example of a certificate so signed and so 

 slighted ; the votes, as I hear, being twenty-four against 

 him, and twenty for him. 



" My mortification is the greater, because it was in 

 consequence of my own proposal that Mr. Cooper became 

 a candidate. And, as I was known to interest myself in 

 the business, by writing in his favour to both the Secre- 



1 Joseph Nikolas von Windischgratz. The Count took this refusal 

 philosophically. In the following year, there appeared in London a 

 Latin pamphlet, being an offer of prizes for improved forms of legal 

 agreements ; under the title, Ad Lectorem : purporting to be translated 

 from the German. London, J. Nichols, 1785. 



