2 1 8 Presidentship of Sir Joseph Banks 1804 



during the sixteen years in which he had taken charge 

 of them. 



There were no fresh names of special note among the 

 visitors this year. On March ist " Mr. Constable " dined 

 with the Club. He was probably the Edinburgh printer, 

 friend of Walter Scott and publisher of the Waverley Novels 

 and of the Edinburgh Review. 



The " Mr. Roscoe " on May 3rd we may believe to have 

 been the well-known historian of Lorenzo de f Medici and 

 Leo X. The Professor Robertson invited by Maskelyne was 

 doubtless Abraham Robertson, Savilian Professor of Geome- 

 try at Oxford. His history was a remarkable example of 

 success in the face of extraordinary difficulties. Born of 

 poor parentage in Berwickshire he came to London, where 

 he received his schooling at Westminster and returned to 

 the north as a schoolmaster. When about four-and-twenty 

 years of age he came again to London, but failed to obtain 

 there the appointment which he was seeking. He then 

 made his way to Oxford, where, by dint of his own abilities 

 and industry, he succeeded in matriculating at Christ- 

 church and obtaining in due course the degrees of B.A. 

 arid M. A. After taking orders he became one of the chaplains 

 of his College. In 1792 he published a treatise on Conic 

 Sections which may have led to his election into the Royal 

 Society in 1795 and to his appointment to the Savilian 

 professorship of geometry in 1797. When the Savilian 

 Professor of Astronomy, who early recognised his merit 

 and had befriended him in his career, retired from that 

 chair in 1810, Robertson was appointed to succeed him 

 and held the professorship until his death in 1826. 



The eleventh Duke of Somerset, another visitor noted 

 for his interest in literary and scientific pursuits, was next 

 year elected a member of the Club. Other titled guests 

 were Lord Kirkwall, Lord de Blaquiere, Sir Gounod Knatch- 

 bull, Sir Thomas Hanmer, Sir George Lee, and Sir J. P. 

 Dalrymple. Professor John Playf air, whose admirable volume 

 of " Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory " published in 

 the spring of 1802 was now arresting the attention of 



