306 Presidentship of the Duke of Sussex 1831 



March and April, and in October. In July, August and 

 September an effort seems to have been made with 

 some success to secure an attendance, though no one 

 came on August nth. Sir Robert Inglis was alone on 

 1st September, and Sir John Stanley had no companion 

 on July 2 ist. 



The visitors this year included Julien-Ursin Niemcewicz, 

 Polish patriot, statesman, historian, poet, and dramatist, 

 who in his youth joined the army, fought under Kosciusko, 

 and was wounded and taken prisoner by the Russians. 

 In later years he had been President of the Society of Sciences 

 at Warsaw. He resided for a short time in England this 

 year, and finally settled in Paris, where he died in 1841. 

 At the time of his visit to the Club he was seventy-four 

 years of age. 



The " Mr. Webster " who dined with the Club on January 

 20th was not improbably Thomas Webster, architect and 

 geologist, who, it is said, was mainly concerned in designing 

 the building of the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, 

 including the theatre, which was regarded by Faraday as 

 " almost perfect as a lecture room." He did some excellent 

 original work as a geologist, was for eight years Secretary 

 of the Geological Society, and in 1841 became the first 

 Professor of Geology in the University of London. He was 

 an early scientific friend of Murchison, who has related of 

 him that " born in the Shetland Isles, and there receiving 

 a good education, he had never seen in that region a tree 

 higher than a bush ; so that in coming southwards, as he 

 told me, he never could forget the astonishment and admira- 

 tion he felt, when on reaching the valley of Berriedale on 

 the borders of Sutherland, he for the first time saw true 

 forest trees. Before these he kneeled down, as true a 

 worshipper as Linnaeus, when he first beheld in England 

 the yellow blossom of our common furze." 1 



On 28th April Dr. Roget introduced to the Club " Pro- 

 fessor Panizzi." This eminent man was born in Modena, 

 educated at Parma, and had taken up the calling of an 



1 Life of Murchison, vol. i. p. 123. 



