1804.] THE EOYAL INSTITUTION. 261 



ment, and the different motives that had been working 

 in the Institution almost from its commencement. 

 It is clear that Count Kumford and Sir Joseph Banks 

 especially desired the promotion of scientific knowledge 

 among the poor and the rich, and that Mr. Bernard 

 and Sir John Hippesley believed that the success of 

 the Institution depended upon fashionable popularity. 

 For the first three years the advancement of scientific 

 knowledge was the chief object of the Institution; in 

 the fourth and fifth years this object gave way to 

 that of fashionable popularity, which was sought for 

 until the original investigations of Davy again made 

 science, in the noble function of new discovery, the life 

 of the Eoyal Institution. 



SIR JOSEPH BASKS TO COUNT RUMFORD. 



April 1804. 



I am very glad to find by your letter that you are 

 well and happy where you now are. In truth, you seem 

 so much so that your friends here begin to suppose you 

 will take root in the soil where you now grow. I cannot, 

 however, disguise that your not appearing in England 

 last year, as I had reason to expect you would have done, 

 has been a material disappointment to me and a great 

 detriment to the Royal Institution. 



It is now entirely in the hands of the profane. I have 

 declared my dissatisfaction at the mode in which it is 

 carried on and my resolution not to attend in future. Had 

 my health and spirits not failed me, I could have kept 

 matters in their proper level, but, sick, alone, and unsup- 

 ported, I have given up what cannot now easily be re- 

 covered. 



The Royal Society, however, goes on extremely well ; onr 

 members are industrious, especially Mr. Hatchett, whose 



