vi 



Royal Medal from the Royal Society, and the honorary degree of LL.D. 

 from the University of Glasgow. Although his health had suffered 

 from domestic sorrows, it might have been expected that more years 

 of work were in store for him, to be rewarded by new discoveries in 

 his favourite studies. Yet these hopes were destined to be summarily 

 disappointed. He went, in the winter of 1878, on a pleasure cruize in 

 Her Majesty's ship " Boadicea," and while at the Cape was attacked 

 by dysentery, and died, after a short illness, on May 4th, 1879. 

 Froude's character was one in which a rare degree of modesty and 

 disregard of self was combined with a singular charm of voice and 

 manner. This enabled him so to act in many difficult positions that 

 he secured for himself a prompt recognition of the great scientific 

 knowledge and powers of mind with which he was endowed, Those 

 who would desire to learn something of his character and work, as 

 depicted by himself, would do well to read the evidence given by him 

 before the Royal Commission on Scientific Research, on May 29th, 

 1872. 



Baron John Benjamin Heath, Grand Officer of the Order of the 

 Crown of Italy, Knight Commander of the Italian Order of Saints 

 Maurice and Lazarus, Knight Commander of the Russian Order of 

 St. Anne, Consul- General for the Kingdom of Italy, was born at 

 Genoa on the 6th June, 1790 ; his father, Mr. John Heath, having 

 been many years established as an English merchant in that Re- 

 public. A few months after his return to England, in 1798, Mr. 

 John Heath sent his son, then only eight years of age, to school 

 at Harrow, under the care of Dr. Drury, then head master of that 

 school, whose wife was sister to Mr. John Heath. He passed about 

 eight years at Harrow, where he was for some time fag to Lord Byron. 

 On leaving Harrow he was sent to Hall Place School, near Foots 

 Cray, in Kent, to learn arithmetic, English grammar, and other matters 

 which at that time were much neglected at our great public schools. 

 He married, in 1811, Sophia, daughter of Robert Bland, M.D., of 

 London, by whom he had a numerous family, of whom seven, i.e., 

 four sons and three daughters, survive him. 



In November, 1816, he was appointed Consul-General for the 

 Kingdom of Sardinia, and in 1861 became Consul- General for the 

 Kingdom of United Italy ; so that at the time of his death, in January 

 last, he had held his Consular Commission rather more than sixty-two 

 years. After fifty years of Consular service he was created a Baron of 

 the Kingdom of Italy by King Victor Emmanuel II, and the title was 

 made hereditary through the male branch. 



Baron Heath continued the business of his father, as a merchant 

 and foreign banker, in London, and was still at the head of the house 

 of Heath and Cc. at the time of his death. He was for fifty years a 



