10 



no suspicion that the very brief allusion which I made to this sub- 

 ject, or the incidental mention of Mr. Panizzi's name, which I made 

 in no offensive or disrespectful sense, would have been considered 

 sufficient ground for its publication. It is not my intention to make 

 any observations on the particular allegations which are made 

 against the Council, both collectively and individually, in Mr. 

 Panizzi's letter, which will be more properly noticed in a short 

 statement, which has been drawn up, in deference to your good 

 opinion, by the Council, and which will be read to you by Dr. 

 Roget*; but I think it my duty to state to you, that I was not 

 only cognisant of the whole course of the proceedings of the Coun- 

 cil at the time"when they took place, but that I perfectly concurred 

 in their propriety ; and I beg leave further to assure you, that a 

 careful perusal of Mr. Panizzi's correspondence with the Council, 

 of his comments upon their resolutions and of his imputations upon 

 their conduct, has in no respect tended to modify the opinion which 

 I originally formed, or to induce me to withdraw from the full 

 share of responsibility which I incur, in connection with these 

 proceedings, in common with every other Member of the Council. 



Before I conclude this portion of my address, I feel it to be my 

 duty to notice the retirement of Mr. Children and Mr. Kdnig from 

 the offices which they have so long and so ably filled. The in- 

 creasing duties, which have been imposed upon them by recent re- 

 gulations at the British j\Iuseum, have been deemed by them in 

 some degree incompatible with those which they owe to the Royal 

 Society ; and they have determined therefore, with a promptitude 

 and delicacy of feeling which does them honour, to retire from 

 their official connexion with us. It is quite unnecessary for me to 

 enlarge upon the merits of two gentlemen who are so weU known 

 to you by their labours in your service, by the courtesy of their 

 manners and by the extent and variety of their acquirements ; but 

 I should do injustice to my own feelings if I did not express, in the 

 strongest terms, my personal obligations to them for their kind at- 

 tention to my wishes, and for the anxiety which they have always 

 shown that the interests of the Royal Society should not suffer from 

 my occasional inability to attend personally to the discharge of the 

 duties of my office. I am quite sure. Gentlemen, that I do not 

 misinterpret your feelings, when I propose to thank them, in your 

 name and my own, for their long and valuable services. 



The Society has lost during the last year twenty-nine Members 

 on the Home, and two on the Foreign List, and I shall now pro- 

 ceed to notice some of the most distinguished names which appear 

 amongst them. 



Henry Thomas Colebrooke was the son of Sir George Cole- 

 brooke, an eminent Director of the East India Company, under 

 whose auspices he proceeded to India, as a witer, in 1782. Though 

 a severe student in youth, and strongly disposed to foUow a learned 

 profession at home, he gave no indications for many years after his 



* Tliis statement is given in page 18. 



