46 MEMOIR OP AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1831. there must be a rule without exception. Leaving this bone 

 for logicians to pick, I go on with my story. About 1835 

 the Government made an important proposal to the 

 Astronomical Society. Mr. Baily, the President, stated 

 that he had summoned the Council to consider a com- 

 munication from the Lords of the Admiralty, which he 

 would forthwith read. He then put his hand in his pocket, 

 and the paper was not there. This almost excited remark, 

 for that Mr. Baily should not remember in which pocket 

 what he looked for was to be found, was a very unlikely 

 thing. But the other pockets also answered in the negative, 

 and the end of it was that Baily announced that he must 

 have left his papers behind him. The announcement of 

 a comet with satellites would not have created half the 

 surprise which followed. There was nothing for it but to 

 take a cab and get back as quick as possible, leaving the 

 Council to decide nem. cow., though it could not be entered 

 on the minutes, that they liked the President all the 

 better for being, to absolute demonstration, a man of like 

 failings with themselves.' 



In the Supplement to the ' Penny Cyclopaedia ' Mr. De 

 Morgan wrote of Mr. Baily : 



( The history of the astronomy of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury will be incomplete without a catalogue of his labours. 

 He was one of the founders of the Astronomical Society, 

 and his attention to its affairs was as accurate and 

 minute as if it had been a firm of which he was the chief 

 clerk, with expectation of being taken into partnership.' 



Sir John Herschel, the most distinguished in general 

 estimation of these co-workers, was not so often among 

 them at this time. He left England for the Cape of Good 

 Hope in 1833, and was of course unable during his absence 

 to take part in the practical business of the Society. My 

 husband's letters to him show how little his colleagues 

 liked to consider him absent. This correspondence began 

 in the year 1831, when Mr. De Morgan, as secretary, 

 addressed him with official formality, and continued till 



