42 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER chap. 



battle of the Nile. One of them gave her a kiss, 

 which she did not altogether approve of, and Nelson 

 said, "You must not mind, my dear. His name is 

 Hardy, and he is the captain of the Audacious." 



Sir Charles Lyell says of her and her husband 

 in his diary : — 



Captain Smyth called, and said his letters from France have 

 disgusted him with the manner in which the eminent scientific 

 men have thrown up their pursuits and turned place-hunters, even 

 Arago. Smyth has an ardent love for science for its own sake, in 

 which his wife sympathises most strongly, and I know no people 

 who have less worldly-mindedness or low ambition or more real 

 happiness and contentment with a small income. 



And again later : — 



When I called yesterday on Mrs. Smyth 1 caught her making 

 abstracts from La Place's Astronomy of those facts and specula- 

 tions which could be made intelligible to persons not mathe- 

 maticians. Her selection is so beautiful and striking that when 

 it is finished I shall get a copy. 



That many-sided scientific sailor Admiral Smyth, 

 after much active service in Indian, Chinese, and 

 Australian waters in the great naval wars of the 

 time, had made charts of the Mediterranean Sea, 

 charts which are the working basis of those now 

 in use, and had been President of the Royal 

 Astronomical Society in 1845-6. He was also 

 one of the founders of the Royal Geographical 

 Society and of the United Service Institution, 

 and Vice-president and Foreign Secretary of the 

 Royal Society, Vice-president and Director of the 



