26 
Proceedings of the Poyal Society 
been an amiable and agreeable man, with strong feelings of affec- 
tion to his friends, and much kindly consideration for the feelings 
of others. He was well informed and highly accomplished. He 
was fond of travelling when he could command a holiday, and 
his skill as an amateur artist enabled him the better to enjoy and 
perpetuate the beauties of the scenery which he visited. 
His frame was never robust, and for some time past he suffered 
from a complication of ailments, which terminated his life on the 
2d November 1869, at the age of fifty- two. 
His funeral was attended by many scientific friends and respect- 
able citizens of Glasgow, as well as by the chief office-bearers of 
Anderson’s Institution, and the students of that seminary joined 
the procession and proceeded with it to the burying-ground. 
Dr William Seller, an eminent member of the medical pro- 
fession, and long an esteemed Fellow of this Society, was born 
in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, in 1798, the son of a respectable 
merchant, who died while his family were children, leaving them 
under the charge of a widow, who was herself still young, and 
who found that, in consequence of losses arising from misplaced 
confidence in others, she must depend on her own exertions 
for the family’s support. She came to Edinburgh as a better 
field, both for earning a livelihood and educating her children, and 
here her son William had the advantage of the excellent educa- 
tion which the High School and the University afforded. He was 
distinguished at both of these seminaries, and latterly was enabled 
to assist his mother by his creditable exertions in private tuition. 
He became at the University a member of the Dialectic Society, 
where he formed many pleasing and permanent friendships with 
several of his contemporaries, including, among others, Lord Deas, 
Dr Aitken, for many years the Minister of Minto, and Dr Cumming, 
Government Inspector of Free Church schools. With these gentle- 
men he maintained a life-long friendship, as well as with many of 
those whom he had attended as private tutor, and who had learned 
to respect his learning and his virtues. Ultimately he made choice 
of medicine as his profession, and took the degree of M.D. in August 
1821. 
Prudential considerations led him soon afterwards to make his 
