435 



is no great question in astronomy, the present position and limits of 

 which are more satisfactorily settled. 



Mr. Pond was remarkable for his skill and delicacy in the mani- 

 pulation of his instruments, and no man was more capable of form- 

 ing a correct judgement of their capacities and powers, and of the 

 nature and extent of the errors to which they were liable : he was in 

 the habit of placing great reliance on the results of a great num- 

 ber of observations, when no apparent or assignable cause existed for 

 giving a determinate sign or character to the errors of individual ob- 

 servations : this confidence, however, was founded on his great know- 

 ledge of the theory of observation, and was fully justified by a com- 

 parison both of his own results with each other, and with those of 

 other observers. 



Mr. Pond was a man of gentle and amiable character, and singu- 

 larly candid and unprejudiced. His health for many years before his 

 death was greatly deranged, but he continued to struggle against the 

 progress of his infirmities, and, from a conscientious feeling, he never 

 abandoned the active duties of superintending the observatory, though 

 hardly able to sustain them. He died in August last, at Lee, in Kent, 

 and was buried in the tomb of his great predecessor Halley. 



Mr. Pond, though a great practical astronomer and a man of un- 

 commonly clear intellect and correct judgement, was deficient in one 

 very considerable qualification for the station which he filled, — I mean, 

 an acquaintance with the higher branches of Analysis, and their ap- 

 plication to Physical Astronomy. His successor, Gentlemen, is well 

 known to you, and needs no eulogium of mine ; but I cannot omit 

 the opportunity which is now offered to me of congratulating the 

 friends of astronomy and of science on the appointment of a gen- 

 tleman to this most important office, who is second to none in this 

 country in his great attainments in almost every department of accu- 

 rate science, in his indefatigable and systematic industry, in his high 

 sense of public duty, and in his profound knowledge both of physical 

 and of practical astronomy. 



The names which I shall next bring before your notice are those 

 of three men, venerable alike for their great age and public services, 

 and who must always be regarded as entitled to hold a distinguished 

 place amongst that illustrious body of great men, who have been pro- 

 duced or brought forward by the important trusts, the varied employ- 

 ments, and, let me add likewise, the great rewards of our Indian empire ; 

 I mean Sir Charles Wilkins, Mr. Marsden, and- Captain Horsburgh. 



Sir Charles Wilkins went to India in 1770, and was the first 

 Englishman who thoroughly mastered the difficulties of the Sanscrit 

 language, of the classical works in which he published several 

 translations, and smoothed the obstacles to its attainment by a noble 

 grammar, which he composed for the especial benefit of the 

 students of the East India college at Hayleybury, of which he was 

 the oriental visitor and examiner from the period of its first esta- 

 blishment. He formed with his own hand the matrices of the first 

 Bengali and Persian types which were used in Bengal, and he M as 

 the chief agent, in conjunction with Sir William Jones, in the esta- 



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