In the midst of this apparent devotion to pursuits for which he had 

 shown so much natural taste, and which seemed to promise him suc- 

 cess iu life, he, strange as it may appear, accepted in November 1S06 the 

 appointment of private secretary to Lord Howick, then Secretary of State 

 to the Foreign Department, and afterwards Earl Grey. He very soon, 

 however, became conscious of a dislike for the service, and quitted it in a 

 mouth, returning to Manchester, where he busied himself again in an 

 occupation in which he was destined to rise to eminence. In the lectures 

 he had already delivered he had introduced, in addition to the subject of 

 Human Physiology, as already taught iu the school, a comparative survey 

 of the functions of auimals, with a view to its forming a useful branch of 

 general knowledge. Encouraged by this first attempt, he commenced, in 

 January 1 SO 7, a more popular course on the Physiology of the Animal King- 

 dom, at the rooms of the Philosophical and Literary Society. This Society 

 numbered amoug its then members men of high distinction iu science and 

 general attainments. In its proceedings Dr. Roget took an active part, 

 and he was one of its Vice-presidents. His lectures, fifteen in number, 

 were delivered in the evenings twice a week, and were well attended and 

 highly esteemed. 



Dr. Roget resigned his post at the Infirmary in October 1808, and 

 transferred the scene of his labours to London, where he established him- 

 self in the following January in a house in Bernard Street, Russell Square, 

 and on the 3rd of March was admitted Licentiate of the Royal College of 

 Physicians. He lost no time in commencing on a wider field, the career 

 which had been indicated to him by his success in Lancashire. An oppor- 

 tunity soon offered itself. The Russell Literary and Scientific Institution 

 had been opened in the preceding year under the management of a number 

 of distinguished residents in the neighbourhood, including his uncle, then 

 Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. James Scarlett (afterwards Lord Abinger), Mr. 

 Francis Horner, &c ; and Dr. Roget and Mr. Pond (the Astronomer Royal) 

 were chosen to inaugurate the first lecture season, in the spring of 1809, by 

 the delivery of two courses of twelve afternoon lectures, the one on Animal 

 Physiology, the other cn Astronomy. Dr. Rogef s course, repeated in the 

 following year, proved to be the first of a long series on his favourite sub- 

 ject, which established for him a high reputation, iu a career of more than 

 thirty years' duration as a public lecturer. It will be convenient here to 

 give a list of these courses. 



Besides his lectures at Manchester in 1806 and 1807, and at the Russell 

 Institution in 1809 and 1810, he lectured on the same subject at the Royal 

 Institution in the spring of 1812, 1813, 1814, 1822, and 1823; at the 

 Loudou Institution in the spring of 1 824 ; at the two last-named places 

 concurrently in the spring of 1825 ; in 1826, at the London Institution in 

 the spring, and at the new Medical School in Aldersgate Street iu the 

 autumn ; aud finally at the Royal Institution in the spring of 1835, 1836, 

 and 1837, as the first Fullerian Professor, to which chair he was nomi- 



