4 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
the Lord President, Chief Baron, the Lord Advocate, John Home, 
David Hume, Henry Mackenzie, Alexander Tytler, the Duke of 
Buccleuch, Archibald Alison, Dr Beattie, Edmund Burke, Lord 
Morton, Lord Hopetoun, John Hunter, Thomas Beid, Young of 
Glasgow, and Mr Liston. That was a nucleus for a great Society ; 
and certainly from that time forward it grew and prospered until 
the position of a Eellow of the Eoyal Society of Edinburgh became 
one of the highest distinction. How, it appeared, they had lasted 
for one hundred years. Whether they all of them could come up 
to the mark of the great men whose names he had read he did not 
know. Eor one thing, we knew many things they did not know, 
although they possibly knew a great many that we did not know ; 
hut, looking hack from 1783 till now, it was a wonderful retro- 
spect in point of knowledge and invention and progress — owing, 
to a large extent, to the labours of the men whose names he had 
just mentioned. The literary side was presided over hy Sir Thomas 
Miller of Barskimming, who held the office of Lord Justice-Clerk, 
the office the speaker had the honour to hold. He was a man of 
very great powers — a great lawyer, and a man of very strong lite- 
rary tastes. But he did not know that the. literary side had quite 
made the progress they might have looked for during that time. 
It did last for about twenty years in great vigour. He had the 
curiosity to see what the subjects were that were treated of. There 
w^ere some very vigorous papers; and among them he found a 
dissertation by John Maclaurin, the son of the mathematician, the 
object of which was to prove that Troy was not taken by the 
Greeks after all, which he tried to prove with a wonderful amount 
of learning. Perhaps he might be excused if he suggested that 
possibly it would be an improvement if in this respect also they 
followed more closely in the footsteps of their predecessors. These 
observations he concluded by wishing the Eoyal Society all pro- 
sperity in the next hundred years. 
