1798 B. G. Niebubr; Captain Mudge 207 



of two and-twenty who had been given leave to quit for 

 a time his post of secretary to the Royal Library of Copen- 

 hagen and come to England. This was no other than the 

 future famous historian and scholar Barthold Georg Niebuhr. 

 He spent three months in London and thereafter a year in 

 Edinburgh, prosecuting with eager ardour the natural sciences 

 and the studies which prepared him for the researches and 

 speculations on which his reputation rests. He was brought 

 twice to the Club in the summer by A. Dalrymple. 



On the 8th November Sir Philip Stephens brought to 

 the Club " M. Devaynes " possibly the French literary 

 man who made his salon in Paris a centre that attracted 

 the society of the old regime, noblesse, men of letters, 

 politicians and financiers, and who was nominated to the 

 Institute of France a few weeks before his death in 1803. 



Mr. Aubert introduced M. Pictet, possibly the Swiss 

 agriculturist and diplomat, who wrote papers on English 

 agriculture in the Bibliotheque Britannique. 



The home guests this year included a number who have 

 already been mentioned Count Rumford, M. Boulton, 

 Captain Bligh, Lord Sheffield and others. Among the fresh 

 names were those of Lord Walsingham, Lord Egremont and 

 Captain Mudge. The last-mentioned visitor, born in 1762, 

 was a godson of Samuel Johnson who, it is recorded, when 

 the youth was a student at the Royal Military College, Wool- 

 wich, paid him a visit and gave him a guinea and a book. 

 Showing great capacity as a mathematician under Dr. 

 Hutton, he was selected in 1791 for appointment to the 

 Ordnance Trigonometrical Survey, of which in the course of 

 seven years he became Director. He was one of the most 

 efficient heads which that institution has ever had. He 

 took a personal part in the extension of the measurement 

 of the meridian through the whole length of Scotland up 

 to the furthest point of the Shetland Isles. He likewise 

 did good service in his guidance of the education of the 

 cadets at Woolwich and Addiscombe. 



1799. On 2oth June 1799 the Annual General Meeting was 

 attended by fifteen members with William Marsden in the 



