LINXEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



XU1 



now speaking, was the removal of the Society from its old home 

 in Soho Square to our present commodious and most desirable 

 location ; and in connexion with this important movement, our 

 close approximation to the Royal Society, and the increased inter- 

 course which we have enjoyed with that body since our juxta- 

 position. I think I may venture to say that all our most sanguine 

 expectations, as to the advantages and pleasures of that relation, 

 have been amply fulfilled. We have now enjoyed four years of 

 prosperous occupation here, and in addition to the pecuniary 

 advantage of immunity from rent, the increased accommodation 

 in regard to space, and the greater convenience and beauty of our 

 rooms, the success which has resulted from these circumstances 

 in the scientific prestige which the Society has acquired, the great 

 addition to our numbers and the increased extent and higher 

 character of our publications, has shown how important to our 

 welfare was the change which we then effected. This advantage 

 has not, however, been enjoyed without an occasional cloud of doubt 

 as to the duration of our occupancy ; and it will be in the recollec- 

 tion of some present that I felt myself called upon in the year 

 1859 to allude in a particular manner to the proposals which were 

 made, and which there was every reason to expect would be car- 

 ried out, to cover the site of Burlington House and the vacant 

 ground behind it, with buildings destined for the mingled occu- 

 pancy of Government Offices, of Scientific Societies, and of the 

 Royal Academy, and other institutions connected with art. This 

 scheme is, for the present at least, abandoned ; and we shall pro- 

 bably be left in undisturbed possession of our present abode for 

 many years to come. The Eoyal Academy, by the recent extensive 

 improvements in the present galleries, appear to have given up 

 any idea of removing, and we shall be spared the threatened ab- 

 surdity of the appropriation of the whole area in front of Burling- 

 ton House, including the site of the present matchless colonnade, 

 as a stand for carriages, useful only during the brief period of the 

 Academy's annual exhibition. 



If, however, the memorial of the last eight years present us with 

 a general result of almost unprecedented prosperity, that period 

 has been no less conspicuous in our history for the number and 

 the melancholy importance of our losses by death. 



In a Society so numerous as ours we must, according to the 

 invariable statistics of mortality, annually have to lament the loss 

 of many of our number, notwithstanding the length of life and 

 of membership by which our list is distinguished, I believe, beyond 



