11 



office, taking part with unabated interest in its useful labours, till within a 

 short time of his death. 



It remains to be added that Dr. Babington was a man of varied accom- 

 plishments. He had a refined taste in art, and applied his hand in some of 

 its departments with no mean success. He had great readiness and skill in 

 devising and constructing apparatus and instruments of various kinds, and 

 mechanical appliances for the ease and comfort of the sick. It is especially 

 worthy of note that in 1829 he communicated to the Hunterian Society of 

 London a method of inspecting the fauces and glottis in the living person 

 by means of a small mirror passed back into the throat ; so that, for aught 

 that appears to the contrary, Dr. Babington is entitled to the credit of 

 having made the first practical step in the art of laryngoscopy. 



Dr. Babington was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1828 ; in 

 1861-63 he served on the Council. His death took place on the 8th of 

 April, 1866. 



William Thomas Brande, D.C.L., F.R.S., was born on the 11th of 

 January, 1788, in Arlington Street, St. James's, London, and died at Tun- 

 bridge Wells on the 11th of February, 1866, in the seventy -ninth year of 

 his age. 



When about six years of age he was placed in a private school at Ken- 

 sington, where he remained four years. At this school he made tolerable 

 progress in the rudiments of the Latin language, and learned to read Greek. 

 On leaving it he was sent to Westminster, where, during a period of eight 

 years, he made fair progress in classical and general knowledge. His 

 father, who was an apothecary, suggested that he should select the Church 

 for his future career ; but he preferred the medical profession, and on the 

 2nd of February, 1802, according to the custom of those days, he was 

 bound apprentice to his brother, who was a Member of the Society of Apo- 

 thecaries, The family removed from Arlington Street to Chiswick, and 

 here it was that Mr. Brande first became acquainted with Mr. Charles 

 Hatchett, whose daughter he subsequently married. Mr. Hatchett at this 

 time was much occupied in chemical investigations, and it appears to have 

 been from his conversation and example that the subject of this memoir 

 first acquired a strong attachment to Chemistry and Mineralogy. He often 

 assisted Mr. Hatchett in his laboratory, and be received from him speci- 

 mens of minerals which formed the foundation of a collection which he 

 kept up through life. He was then simply a schoolboy fond of science, 

 and this feeling was encouraged and developed by the kindness and atten- 

 tion of Mr. Hatchett. He had then no idea that chemistry would be his 

 future profession. 



In the year 1802, when in his fourteenth year, he paid a visit to his 

 uncle at Hanover, and here he acquired a good knowledge of the French 

 and German languages. In the spring of 1803 he visited Brunswick and 

 Gottingen ; but all his plans of study w^ere interfered with by the breaking 



