429 



Joshua Field, Esq. ; Robert Edmund Grant, M.D. ; Rev. William 

 B. L. Hawkins, M.A. ; Edward John Johnson, Captain R.N. ; John 

 D. Llewelyn, Esq.; Captain Thomas Locke Lewis, R E. ; Rev. 

 Humphrey Lloyd, M.A. ; Francis Marcet, Esq. ■ Sir William 

 Molesworth, Bart. ; Earl of Minto j Moses Montefiore, Esq. ; Dr. 

 Archibald Robertson ; the Rev. William Taylor ; Charles Wheat- 

 stone, Esq. 



Deceased : on the Home List. — John Bell, Esq. ; William Blane, 

 Esq. ; Richard Blanshard, Esq. ; the Right Honourable Reginald Pole 

 Carew ; Lewis Andrew de la Chaumette, Esq. ; Lord Bishop of Ely ; 

 Sir William Gell; Dr. Gillies; William Henry, M.D.; James Hors- 

 burgh, Esq.; David Hosack, M.D. ; William Lax, Esq.; William E. 

 Leach, M.D. 5 William Marsden, Esq. ; William M. Pitt, Esq. ; John 

 Pond, Esq. ; Richard Saumarez, Esq. ; Sir John Sinclair, Bart. ; 

 Rev. G. A. Thursby; Pelham Warren, M.D.; William R. Whatton, 

 Esq.; Sir Charles Wilkins, K.H.; Grant David Yeats, M.D. 



On the Foreign List. — Monsieur Ampere ; Monsieur Jussieu. 



His Royal Highness the President, then addressed the Society in 

 the following words : — . 



Gentlemen, 



I appear before you, after an absence of two years from this 

 chair, under circumstances which deeply affect my feelings. I have 

 been secluded, during nearly the whole of that period, from the 

 active business of life and of society, by the slow but sure ap- 

 proaches of almost total blindness ; by preparations for a most de- 

 licate and, to me, most important operation, and by the precautions 

 which were necessary to accomplish my recovery, after it had been 

 most skilfully and successfully performed. In resuming now, there- 

 fore, my public duties in this place, I feel sensibly the novelty of 

 my situation, as if I were entering, by the blessing of God, upon a 

 new tenure of existence, which, whilst it offers to my view many 

 prospects of happiness, imposes upon me likewise heavy responsi- 

 bilities ; and I can only express my fervent hope and prayer, that 

 the same merciful Providence which ha*s vouchsafed, through his 

 appointed means, to restore me to sight, may enable me, like a 

 willing and humble-minded scholar, to apply the lessons taught me 

 by the experience of my past life, to the just and useful regulation 

 of that portion of my course which I may be still permitted to run. 



It is my first and most pleasing duty, Gentlemen, to thank you 

 for your congratulations upon my recovery, which have been con- 

 veyed to me in terms most grateful to my feelings. I have on many 

 occasions experienced both your kindness and forbearance, and I 

 deeply regret that circumstances should so frequently have com- 

 pelled me to appeal to them: but at no moment could the expression 

 of your good-will be more welcome to me than at the present, when I 

 am enabled to reappear amongst you, upon being again entrusted 

 with the possession of that blessing, the value of which I have learnt 

 to appreciate more fully by my experience of its privation. 



