XXX 



expert audiences, but in successive series of luminous popular 

 lectures. 



Of the literary style in which all this was done, Professor Engel- 

 niann must be allowed to speak. " Besseres Deutsch ist nicht 

 geschrieben worden. Helmholtz' Sprache ist von vollendeter edelster 

 Natiiriichkeit, von ruhigstem Elusse und gleichmassigem Wohllaut. 

 Er liebt die kurze gerade Redeweise, verschmaht prunkvolle Worte 

 und den haufigen Gebrauch von Bildern und erhebt sich doch, wo 

 es der Gegenstand mit sich bringt, zu poetischer Warme des 

 Ausdrucks." 



Such is a brief record of the more salient results of the work of 

 von Helmholtz. If judged both by their variety and importance, 

 they have, perhaps, never been equalled. They secured for him in 

 his lifetime the admiration and respect of the whole civilized world. 

 Honours were showered upon him. In particular, he was ennobled 

 by the German Emperor, was a Foreign Member of the Royal 

 Society, and in 1873 was awarded the Copley Medal. He attained 

 his seventieth year in 1891, and the occasion was celebrated in 

 Germany almost as a national festival, while outside the limits of the 

 German Empire " learned societies," to quote his own words, " spread 

 over the whole world, from Tomsk to Melbourne," expressed by 

 diplomas and addresses their sense of the importance of his scientific 

 work. 



He outlived the celebration by three years only. His death 

 deprived the world of one of the most notable of the leaders of the 

 science of the nineteenth century. 



A. W. R. 



The death of Sir James Cockle removes from our midst a man 

 eminent as a lawyer and a judge, and no less eminent as a mathe- 

 matician. Of the work which he did, and the distinctions which he 

 won at the bar and on the bench, something maybe said here ; though 

 he was known to us chiefly by his writings on subjects far removed 

 from his professional life. He commenced his legal career fifty years 

 ago as a special pleader, and on being called to the bar joined the 

 Midland Circuit, where he gained the good opinion and esteem of all 

 with whom he came in contact. He was especially admired for his 

 justness of thought, clearness of view, refinement of mind, and eleva- 

 tion of character. These .characteristics, combined with a sound 

 knowledge of law and unwearied industry, eminently fitted him for 

 the high position he was afterwards called to fill as first Chief 

 Justice of Queensland. This advancement he owed to the influence 

 of Sir William Erie, then Chief Justice of the Court of Common 

 Pleas, who had formed a very favourable opinion of his capacity 

 and character. Erie, on being applied to by the Colonial Office, 



