1806.] THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 275 



In October Sir Francis Baring invited Sir Joseph 

 Banks to become a vice-president. This he declined by a 

 letter writen on October 14. He, however, expressed 

 his wish to purchase a share in the Institution. He 

 said: 



I confess, however, I do not at present foresee the period 

 at which the utility of your new Institution is likely 

 to commence. The Royal Society was set on foot by a 

 number of persons well versed in those matters which its 

 constitution was intended to promote. The Royal Institu- 

 tion was at first wholly under the direction of persons 

 entirely addicted to science, and has not improved since 

 the management of it has passed into other hands. The 

 Athenaeum at Liverpool has been formed, I may say, wholly 

 under the immediate superintendence of Mr. Roscow and 

 Dr. Currie. All this I can understand, but how the very 

 worthy and most respectable men you at present look up 

 to as managers of your new Institution will be able to 

 guide it into the paths of science and literature is not to 

 me quite so evident as I sincerely wish it to be. 



In 1806 Sir James Mackintosh, writing from India 

 to his friend Mr. Sharp, also shows how fashion, rather 

 than science, had become the characteristic of the Royal 

 Institution. 



Your account of the London Institution has delighted 

 and tantalised me. I wish I were a professor ! But 

 the printed paper is too general to admit of any dis- 

 cussion. You do not say how many and who are to be 

 professors. It may surely be a little more solid than the 

 fashionable nerves of Albemarle Street could endure with- 

 out ceasing to be popular. 



In 1806 'the attempt to make the Institution 

 fashionable' by means of the number and quality of 



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