10 



period of his life he patronised, encouraged, and promoted practical 

 astronomy. 



Lieutenant-Colonel Mackenzie has, I understand, cultivated sci- 

 ence in the East, but no particulars have come to my knowledge. 



Sir Lucas Pepys is well known to have attained considerable emi- 

 nence in his profession. 



The Rev. Stephen Weston will long be remembered for his learn- 

 ing, abilities, good-nature, and for his eccentric compositions on 

 various subjects, and in different languages. And for one at least, 

 I may truly say, that it would gratify me to find a more permanent 

 reputation secured for this excellent man, by a collection being 

 given to the public of his numerous Opuscula. 



The late Duke of Atholl demands also attention, not on account 

 of his high station , but as a patron of science, and especially of that 

 most important, interesting and rapidly improving branch of science, 

 Geology. 



Geology, deriving its birth from the continent of Europe, seems 

 to have been drawn to this island by the genius of Dr. Hutton, and 

 here to have grown with the vigour of youth under the fostering 

 hands of many who now hear me, and also of a gentleman to whom 

 the Duke of Atholl afforded every assistance to be derived from his 

 large property, and his extensive influence. 



The Duke of Atholl has also at once enriched and decorated his 

 country ; and afforded an instructive example to all other proprietors 

 of similar wastes, by clothing tracts of land, incapable of a different 

 cultivation, with the most valuable of the pines. His forests of larch, 

 which have acquired maturity in the course of a single life, promise 

 not merely to supersede the use of foreign deal, but to allow of our 

 reserving the tree always esteemed the peculiar pride and boast of 

 this island, for the construction of ships of war on the largest scale. 



Another individual remains, whom no technicality in regard to 

 pursuits can prevent our noticing with honour, on this occasion : 

 whose very deportment indicated the elegance of his mind ; and 

 the justness of whose remarks on everything connected with art, 

 gave assurance of the perfection invariably found to exist in all 

 subjects created by the touch of his magic pencil. 



Sir Thomas Lawrence stands proudly preeminent among native 

 artists, and perhaps among artists of the whole world, in that de- 

 partment to which he exclusively applied the powers of his genius : 

 nor would, I am persuaded, the great painter of the preceding age 

 have been unwilling to admit him as his equal in the delineation of 

 portraits — not the servile copies of individual features, but poetic 

 likenesses, where every excellence is heightened, where the mind is 

 depicted, and where the particular person seems to embody the class 

 of virtues, of intellectual powers, or of amiable qualities, designating 

 the moral order in which he is arranged. 



This constitutes unquestionably a department of historical paint- 

 ing not inferior, perhaps, nor even less difficult of acquirement than 

 the others, where all is imaginary. 



