148 Presidentship of Sir Joseph Banks 1780 



year ; of these, two, the Bishop of Exeter and Dr. Turton, 

 had sent no excuse. The meeting decided that there were 

 three vacancies. These were rilled up by ballot, and Dr. 

 Charles Blagden, the Rev. Dr. Anthony Shepherd, and 

 Henry, Viscount Palmerston, were duly elected members. 



Charles Blagden, M.D., took his degree of medicine at 

 Edinburgh in 1768, and settling in London acquired a high 

 reputation as a physician. He was evidently a pleasant 

 companion. Boswell records that Johnson, " talking of Dr 

 Blagden's copiousness and precision of communication, said, 

 ' Blagden, Sir, is a delightful fellow/ " 1 He was elected 

 into the Royal Society in 1772, and became one of its 

 secretaries in 1784. He was knighted in 1793. His posi- 

 tion as Secretary of the Royal Society made him ex officio 

 a member of the Club. But no advantage was taken of 

 this appointment to keep up the full number of elected 

 members. Anyone who, being already an elected member, 

 was appointed to an office that entitled him to be an ex 

 officio member practically filled two places in the Club and 

 thus kept out a candidate who might otherwise be admitted. 

 Probably through inadvertence, this position was not 

 realised until 1794, when Dr. Blagden surrendered his place 

 as an elected member. He is alluded to by the sarcastic 

 Mathias as the Secretary of the Royal Society, burdened 

 with the preparation of the Philosophical Transactions : 



While oer the bulk of these transacted deeds 

 Prim Blagden pants, and damns them as he reads. 2 



The Rev. Anthony Shepherd, D.D., Fellow of Christ's 

 College, Cambridge, was appointed Plumian Professor of 

 Astronomy at Cambridge in 1760. He became F.R.S. in 1763. 



The second Viscount Palmerston was at this time member 

 for Hastings, and had been a .Lord of Admiralty and a Lord 

 of the Treasury. He was fond of travel in Europe and was 

 also eminently sociable, so that he made his house in London 

 a great centre of attraction for the society of his time. 



1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, iv. 30. 



2 Pursuits of Literature, i6th 4to Edit. p. 83. 



