9 
so magnificent a pile had not been destined for a more conformable 
object. Scotchmen were usually charged in former days by their 
neighbours with presenting, by a species of elective attraction, the 
frequent union of poverty and pride. It may be allowable in a 
native of the Scotch metropolis to lament, that the old sneer should 
be verified in these present times, by the pride of lodging poverty in 
such a palace. 
I am assured that Playfair was so conscientiously fastidious in 
discharging the trust reposed in him as a professional man, that he 
executed all his drawings with his own hands. When engaged in 
this task, he for many years constantly worked in the standing pos- 
ture, often for twelve hours a-day. To this habit he himself ascribed, 
not without justice, a paralytic affection of the spine, which gradu- 
ally stole upon him when he was a man of middle life only. Slowly 
increasing year after year, it at last prevented in a great measure 
locomotion. But his aptitude for exercise of the mind continued 
unimpaired long afterwards. And even when his sad malady, spread- 
ing upwards, enfeebled his arms, and at length invaded also his 
mental faculties, it only required a new point in his plans to need 
consideration, when he was aroused to his old perspicuity and deci- 
sion, and the point was settled. 
Playfair was, in every good sense of the words, a scholar and a 
gentleman. As such, his society was courted on all hands. But 
for many years his infirmities had withdrawn him very much from 
the social circle ; so that few except one or two old intimates can 
now tell how much society has lost in this respect by his death. He 
died in his sixty-eighth year. Ho one can doubt that his memory 
will long survive in his works. 
The biography of William Scoresby belongs not so much to us 
as to the parent Society of the sister kingdom. But as this remark- 
able man frequently visited us, joined us as an Ordinary Bellow, 
sometimes contributed to the business of our meetings, and was in 
early life a student of our University during the winter intervals of 
repose from his voyages of Arctic adventure, it becomes me to ad- 
vert shortly to the departure of one so eminent in Science, so amiable 
in disposition, so distinguished for Christian virtue. 
Scoresby was the son of an experienced whaler and able navigator 
of Whitby, in Yorkshire. The father’s zeal in his profession was so 
intense and catholic, that he actually carried off his child to his 
VOL. TV. 
B 
