524 



our chemical knowledge and to the scientific reputation of En- 

 gland. 



Sir Henry Halford, Bart., G.C.H., was the son of Dr. James 

 Vaughan of Leicester, and was born on the 2nd of October 1766. 

 He received his preliminary education at Rugby, and graduated at 

 Christ Church College, Oxford, in the year 1794. He established 

 himself as physician in London, and quickly rose to great emi- 

 nence in his profession. Distinguished no less by the elegance of 

 his manners than by the extent of his classical acquirements, his 

 practice rapidly increased, and he soon became the favourite phy- 

 sician of the court and of the elevated circles of rank and fashion. 

 In 1809 he came into possession of an ample fortune on the death of 

 Sir Charles Halford, a cousin of his mother, who was a daughter of 

 Lord St. John, and in consequence of this acquisition he changed 

 his name from Vaughan to Halford, a baronetcy being at the same 

 time conferred upon him by George the Third, who had previously 

 appointed him his physician. He continued to hold a similar ap- 

 pointment under George the Fourth, William the Fourth, and her 

 present Majesty, and thus enjoyed the remarkable distinction of 

 having possessed the confidence of four successive sovereigns, and 

 of having attended professionally almost every member of the Royal 

 Family. 



To the honours thus emanating from royal favour were added 

 the highest which the members of his own profession could confer. 

 Sir Henry Halford was elected President of the College of Phy- 

 sicians in the year 1820, and held this office till his death, which 

 happened in the month of March of the present year. His consti- 

 tution was naturally robust, and its vigour was sustained unimpaired 

 to an advanced period of life ; but in later years the advance of age 

 had become perceptible, his activity declined, and his constitution 

 at last sank, in the 78th year of his age, under the exhaustion con- 

 sequent on a neuralgic aflPection. 



He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1810; he con- 

 tributed no paper to our Transactions, but has enriched those of 

 the College of Physicians with numerous valuable essays on pro- 

 fessional subjects. His orations pronounced before the College are 

 remarkable for the classical purity and elegance of their latinity. 



Francis Baily, Esq. — ^^It is with a feeling of sorrow, in which 1 

 know that every Fellow of the Royal Society will participate, that I 

 have to notice the irreparable loss of our distinguished colleague 

 Mr. Francis Baily. 



The memoir of Mr. Baily, which has been drawn up by Sir J. 

 Herschel, and which is now in the press, will contain so full an ac- 

 count of his personal history and so elaborate an analysis of his 

 various scientific labours, that I feel that I should do injustice to my 

 subject if I attempted to sketch a character which he has painted 

 with so much warmth and fullness of colouring, and with such cha- 

 racteristic accuracy of outline and detail ; and it is only with refer- 



