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stand triumphant when they pass through the ordeal of public 

 opinion. These grounds, I feel bound to say, exist very forcibly 

 in the present instance. I have not yet seen the work which the 

 Council has this year recommended to the Academy as deserving of 

 this honour ; but I know, and have satisfied myself by the inquiries 

 I have made of one well acquainted with this work, and one than 

 whom there is no person more competent to give a weighty opinion 

 — I have, I say, satisfied myself, and, if I named my authority, you 

 would all of you, I think, be equally satisfied, that in this instance 

 also, the Academy will do honour to itself by honouring the author of 

 this valuable work. On a subject like that of which he treats — the 

 Calculus of Variations — partsof which have,for a century and a half, 

 employed the noblest mathematical intellects in the world, it is not 

 to be supposed that any one individual, however highly gifted he 

 may be, can add much to the existing stock of our knowledge ; yet, 

 even in that respect, this work contains improvements of previously 

 existing methods and other advantages, which, if their author had 

 given them to us in a separate manner, would themselves have formed 

 no ordinary title to fame. But this would have been a very con- 

 tracted mode of considering the question. A far greater service has 

 been rendered by the manner in which this task has been executed, 

 to the advancement of geometry, than could possibly have been done 

 by the author, if he had had in view merely the extension of his 

 fame in this branch of high analysis. By devoting himself to a task 

 far less attractive, and less remunerative to the exertions bestowed 

 upon it than many other pursuits, and by descending from the 

 more desirable position of an inventor to the humbler but more 

 useful one of enabling others to place themselves on a level with 

 himself, by compiling, for their use, an excellent elementary treatise, 

 he has conferred on his species a benefit of the highest order ; and, 

 for this reason, therefore, as a reward for a work admirably per- 

 formed, and calculated to be eminently useful, but as little likely to 

 be given to the world as it was desirable that it should be so, — I fully 

 concur in the adjudication of the Council, and I am sure, you, gentle- 

 men, will agree with me. Therefore, Mr. Jellett (turning to that 

 gentleman), I present you with this Medal, and I may observe that 

 I have an added pleasure in presenting it, because I had the good 



