883.] 



President' 1 s Address. 



61 



"... He lovede chyralrye, 

 Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie. 



And though that he was worthy he was wys, 



And of his port as meke as is a niayde. 



He never yit no vilonye ne sayde 



In al his lyf unto no nianer wight. 



He was a verray perfight gentil knight." 



It is not for me to pass any judgment npon Mr. Spottiswoode's 

 scientific labours; but I have the best authority for saying, that 

 having occupied himself with many branches of mathematics, more 

 especially with the higher algebra, including the theory of deter- 

 minants, with the general calculus of symbols, and with the application 

 of analysis to geometry and mechanics, he did excellent and durable 

 work in all ; and that, in virtue of his sound and wide culture, his deep 

 penetration, and the singular elegance with which he habitually 

 treated all his subjects, he occupied a place in the front rank of 

 English mathematicians. 



The interment in Westminster Abbey of one who, though com- 

 pelled to devote a large share of his time to business, was a born man 

 of science, and had won himself so high a place among mathema- 

 ticians, was doubtless grateful to us as men of science ; it could not 

 but be satisfactory to us, as Fellows of the Royal Society, that, on the 

 rare occasion of the death of our President in office, the general public 

 should show its sympathy with our bereavement ; yet, as men, I think 

 it is good to regard those solemn and pathetic obsequies as the tribute 

 which even our busy, careless, cynical, modern world spontaneously 

 pays to such worth and wisdom, to such large humanity and unspotted 

 purity, as were manifested in the "very perfect gentle knight" wha 

 so well represented the chivalry of science. 



The total number of Fellows deceased during the past year amounts 

 to twenty-one ; a large inroad upon our ranks in mere numbers, an 

 exceptionally severe mortality if we consider the scientific rank of 

 many names in the death-roll. Almost at the same time with 

 Mr. Spottiswoode's untimely death, we lost, at the ripe old age of 

 ninety-five, a very distinguished Fellow and former President of this 

 Society, Sir Edward Sabine. It is said that the average age of 

 Fellows of the Royal Society is greater than that of any body of men 

 in Europe ; and it is certainly a remarkable fact that one who so 

 long presided over us in this generation, should, as a man of thirty 

 years, have been the contemporary of Sir Joseph Banks, who became 

 our President more than a century ago. And nothing can give a 

 more striking exemplification of the gigantic progress of physical 

 science in modern times than the fact that the discovery of oxygen 

 by Priestley, and that of the composition of water by Cavendish, fall 



