ANNIVEESAEY ADDEESS. 33 



after will, I hope, see itself surmounted by a superstructure of 

 enduring reputation, when you and I shall have long passed 

 away beyond the heats of controversy or the coldness of criticism. 

 Let us do what we can to serve honestly our day and generation ; 

 and then we may be assured, that though posterity cannot benefit 

 or hurt us now, in its own time it will do us justice. What more 

 do we need ? 



May I be permitted to add that to myself it has been a great 

 satisfaction to have contributed in what I know to be a humble 

 way to the Society's work ; and if I have done anything whatever 

 to keep it on the move, such care as I have been enabled to 

 bestow upon it has been amply rewarded by the kind co-operation 

 of my friends in the Council during the many long years in which 

 you have been pleased to place and keep me in a responsible 

 position, and by an unexpected and general act of attention and 

 regard not long since, which I should be wanting in duty and 

 respect towards you if I did not thus publicly acknowledge. 



Tear by year, as I have occupied my accustomed place at your 

 meetings, I have felt that I am less and less able to keep up with 

 my own wishes for the advancement of the Society ; and with 

 frequent remindings that this is not my final resting-place, with a 

 certainty also that I ought soon to make way for one younger and 

 stronger than myself, I would now make what may be a final appeal 

 as to the necessity of giving earnest consideration to the sugges- 

 tions made at the beginning of this Address. 



If all that remains of me at any future Anniversary be the 

 painted canvas which does so much credit to the artist whom you 

 voluntarily employed to do me honor, I still hope that that 

 representation jof me may look down upon a flourishing Association 

 of men, whose appearance at your meetings will not be the mere 

 inducement to spend a pleasant evening, but who will find that 

 even such a gathering is to be a pledge that they have at 

 heart a better aim and a more useful and nobler object for the 

 employment of their leisure. I say not this in a presuming or in 

 a doubting spirit ; but I honestly desire to see the Eoyal Society 



