438 



the claims of a client. Mr. Bell, with an uncommon exercise of 

 philosophy, retired from the active duties of his profession, whilst in 

 the receipt of a splendid income from it, on the first warnings of 

 the approaches of the infirmities of old age. He was a man of great 

 liberality and kindness of heart, and remarkable for the steadiness 

 of his attachment to a large circle of professional and other friends. 



The Rev. William Lax, formerly Fellow of Trinity College, and 

 Lowndes's Professor of Astronomy and Geometry in the University 

 of Cambridge, was Senior Wrangler in the year preceding Mr. Bell, 

 and throughout life one of his most intimate friends : he contributed 

 two papers to our Transactions ; one in 1796, on a subject of no 

 great importance, and the other in 1809, on the method of ex- 

 amining the divisions of astronomical instruments, in the same vo- 

 lume M r hich contained papers on similar subjects by Mr. Cavendish 

 and Mr. Troughton. The method proposed by Mr. Lax, though 

 very ingenious, requires great labour and time, and is inferior in 

 accuracy and efficiency to that which was adopted by Mr. Troughton 

 for tabulating the errors of the primary divisions of circular instru- 

 ments. Professor Lax was the author of Tables to be used with the 

 Nautical Almanack, and he had built a small observatory at his re- 

 sidence in Hertfordshire, where he occupied himself for the last 

 thirty years of his life with studies and pursuits connected with the 

 advancement of astronomy. 



Sir John Sinclair devoted nearly the whole of a very long and 

 laborious life to pursuits and inquiries connected with the improve- 

 ment of agriculture and the general benefit of his countrymen. He 

 was a very voluminous author ; and though different opinions may 

 be entertained of the merit and usefulness of some of his later pro- 

 ductions, the Statistical Account of Scotland which he originated, 

 and arranged, will be a durable monument to his memory, pre- 

 senting as it does a more complete and comprehensive record of the 

 state of that kingdom at the period when it was compiled, than is 

 to be found in the literature of any other country. 



Dr. John Gillies, venerable alike for his great age and his amiable 

 character, was the successor of Dr. Robertson, as the king's histo- 

 riographer for Scotland: he was the author of a History of Greece 

 and of the World from the conquests of Alexander to the age of 

 Augustus, and he translated some of the Greek orators, the ethical, 

 political and rhetorical treatises of Aristotle, upon whose specu- 

 lative works generally he wrote a very enlarged commentary. He 

 was a pleasing and popular writer, though not very profoundly ac- 

 quainted with the great advances which have been made of late 

 years in Germany and elsewhere in our knowledge of archasology 

 and historical criticism. 



Sir William Gell was well known as a topographical antiquary, 

 and published works of great interest and research, some of them 

 very splendidly embellished, on Pompeii, and on the modern, as 

 illustrating the ancient topography of Troy, Ithaca, the Pelopon- 

 nesus, Attica and Rome. He was a very accomplished artist and a 

 man of great liveliness of conversation, and of very attractive man- 



