484 



of heartfelt sorrow that the services of Mr. Roberton have been lost 



to us by his sudden and lamented death. His attention to his duties, 

 his zeal for the honour and interest of our Society must have been 

 apparent to you all, and especially to those who have formed part 

 of our Council ; but his merits were of course still better known to 

 the more permanent officers of your body, and they entirely concur 

 with me in this inadequate testimony of our regret. 



Turning our attention to the obituary of the last year, I shall now 

 proceed to read it to you, premising that we have been too recently 

 acquainted with the death of M. Bouvard, Jun. to enable us at 

 present to give any account of his life and labours. 



His Royal Highness Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke 

 OF Sussex, Earl of Inverness, and Baron of Arklow, Knight of the 

 Garter, and Grand Master of the Order of the Bath, was born on 

 the 27th of January, 1773. 



In early life he joined the Whig party in politics, and adhered to 

 it till his death. No one doubted the sincerity of his opinions ; 

 indeed, he must have made personal sacrifices that would forbid 

 the possibility of any one's doubting that they were the real con- 

 victions of his mind. The decided nature of his sentiments was 

 unaccompanied and unobscured by any shade of bitterness, and he 

 gave that charitable interpretation to the motives of those with 

 whom he differed, that he expected for his own. The eulogiums 

 pronounced upon him, after his death, by the Duke of Wellington 

 and Sir Robert Peel, are, indeed, as honourable to them as it is to 

 him of whom they spoke. The active part of his life, hoAvever, 

 was little occupied by the concerns of party; it was rather dedi- 

 cated to those interests, where happily there is in this country no 

 party, or rather, where all are more or less of the same party. It was 

 in increasing the funds by which the wants of the orphan and widow 

 are relieved, by which the sick are cured, and the ignorant are in- 

 structed, and by which comfort is given to every species of desti- 

 tution, that his late Royal Plighness seems chiefly to have delighted. 

 Next to this was his interest in intellectual pursuits : he collected a 

 noble library, especially rich in Biblical Literature, which was the 

 more prized by him from his acquaintance with the Hebrew 

 language. 



He was fond of mechanics, and left at his decease a large collec- 

 tion of clocks and time-pieces, a taste for which he apparently 

 inherited from his father, George the Third. He v/as for many 

 years President of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, 

 Manufactures and Commerce, a Society that has done much to 

 encourage mechanical ingenuity. Finally, he evinced his regard 

 for natural science, by presiding for several years over our Society, 

 in whose concerns he would probably have taken a more active 

 part but for the affection of his eyes, by which he was for some 

 years deprived partially or wholly of the blessing of sight ; a blessing, 

 which was, however, in a great degree, restored to Jiim by the skill 

 of Mr. Alexander. Those Fellows of the Society who are Free- 



