1788 Major Rennell ; Sir George Staunton 183 



" Major Rennell, whose East India geographical erudition 

 you must have heard of from Captain Phillips, was full of 

 characteristic intelligence, simply and clearly delivered ; 

 and made us all wiser by his matter, if we remembered it, 

 and gayer by his manner, whether we remembered it or 

 not. I hope to meet him often. He is a gay little wizen 

 old man in appearance, from the eastern climate's dilapida- 

 tions upon his youth and health ; but I believe not old 

 in years, any more than in spirits/' x 



Dr. Simmons, a physician of good standing in London, 

 was made F.R.S. in 1779. Richard Molesworth became 

 F.R.S. in 1786 and William Parsons in 1787. 



Sir George Staunton, Bart., M.D., graduated in medicine 

 at Montpellier. Finding little opening in his profession in 

 this country, he went to the West Indies, where he practised 

 for some years. Before he quitted England he had made 

 the acquaintance of Samuel Johnson, who in 1762, on the 

 eve of his departure, wrote to him thus : "I cannot but 

 regret that a man of your qualifications should find it 

 necessary to seek an establishment in Guadaloupe, which 

 if a peace should restore it to the French, I shall think it 

 some alleviation of the loss that it must likewise restore 

 Dr. Staunton to the English." 2 Subsequently he went to 

 the East Indies and entered the service of the East India 

 Company. Retiring from this service on a pension, after 

 accomplishing some difficult diplomatic negotiations, he was 

 made an Irish baronet in 1785. Two years later he was 

 elected into the Royal Society. In 1792 he went out again 

 to the East as Secretary to Macartney's Embassy to China, 

 of which he published an account. He died in 1801 and was 

 buried in Westminster Abbey. 



No fresh visitors from abroad appeared at the Club this 

 year, but a welcome was given again to Lalande who after 

 the lapse of a quarter of a century had come back to Eng- 

 land. He was evidently the same man of the world as 



1 Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, vol. V. p. 269 (December 1791). 

 Rennell was 49 when this picture of him was drawn. 

 * Boswell's Life (Birkbeck Hill's Edit.), vol. I. p. 367. 



