i.] ANTECEDENTS. 65 



tion concerning the families of 120 scientific 

 men : 



I find in the first group of 660 persons : (1) 

 Jeremy Bentham, a great leader of thought and 

 founder of a school of philosophy; (2) Wedge- 

 wood, the founder of a national industry and 

 art ; (3) Compton, the inventor of a machine for 

 cotton manufacture, which gave a timely impetus 

 to that great national industry ; (4) Maskelyne, 

 an astronomer-royal ; (5) Playfair, the scientific 

 head of a Scotch university ; (6) William Smith, 

 founder of British geology; (7) Harcourt, the 

 lawgiver and first president of the British As- 

 sociation ; (8) Pemberton Milnes, who refused 

 both a secretaryship of state and a peerage ; 

 (9) Latrobe, who was to the very worthy sect 

 of the Moravians much what Barclay was to the 

 Quakers, that is to say, not its founder, but a 

 great support to it ; (10 and 11) two archbishops, 

 Harcourt of York and Brodrick of Cashel ; 

 (12) Erasmus Darwin, poet and philosopher of 

 high repute in his day; (13) Isaac Taylor, 

 author of "Natural History of Enthusiasm/' 

 &c. I will stop here, though it would be 



