PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



THE following brief memoirs were originally compiled for 

 the purpose of accompanying the Engraving of " The 

 Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain living in 

 1807-8, assembled at the Royal Institution." As, however, 

 " The Memoirs" were found to have a considerable sale, 

 independent of the Engraving, it has been found necessary 

 to produce a second edition. All the lives have been care- 

 fully revised, and considerable additions made, while, in 

 order to render the present book a more complete com- 

 pendium of the great men of that period, an Appendix 

 has been added, containing the Memoirs of Black, Cort, 

 Ivory, and Priestly, who unfortunately were, from dif- 

 ferent reasons, unable to be included in the group in the 

 Engraving. 



With the exception of the notices of Trevithick, Ten- 

 nant, Maudslay, Francis Ronalds, and one or two more, 

 these memoirs necessarily contain little information which 

 has not been previously published in some shape or other. 

 The authorities from which the present particulars have 

 been taken are given at the end of each memoir ; and the 

 writer claims no further merit than that of having com- 

 piled and arranged the works of others, whose language, 

 in most cases, it would indeed be presumption in him to 

 alter, further than was necessary to present to the public 

 in a clear, brief, and (it is hoped) readable form, the doings 

 of men who must ever be held in the grateful remembrance 

 of their country. 



