514 Proceedings of the Royal Society 
and M. Appert agreed to decipher independently certain cuneiform 
inscriptions brought from Nineveh, and to compare the results. The 
comparison showed a general harmony amongst the four interpreta- 
tions, hut by no means an identity. Mr Talbot’s genius was too 
original and of too high an order to fail of recognition. The Eoyal 
Society of London conferred on him both their Eoyal and their 
Eumford medal. It also assigned to him the Bakerian Lecture for 
1856, the subject being “Further observations on the optical 
phenomena of crystals.” Mr Talbot’s contributions to our own 
Transactions consist for the most part of historical sketches or short 
papers on subjects lying on the borders of his early investigations ; 
such are the papers on “Fermat’s Theorem,” on “Fagnani’s Theorem,” 
<fec. Perhaps an exception to this remark may be found in the paper 
“ On a new mode of observing certain spectra,” based on experiments 
made in Professor Tait’s laboratory. In his brief note on “Ano- 
malous Spectra” he shows that he long ago anticipated the wonderful 
discovery of Le Eoux and Christiansen, but was prevented from pub- 
lishing his observations by the advice of Sir D. Brewster. In private 
life Mr Talbot was shy and reserved to strangers, but a lively and ani- 
mated talker when in the congenial society of old friends, such as Sir 
David Brewster, and indeed of some younger men whom he honoured 
with his friendship. He sat for two years in the first Eeformed 
Parliament. Of this he was reminded by Lord Palmerston, when in 
1863 the University of Edinburgh conferred on these two men, 
so very unlike each other, the honorary degree of LL.D. Many 
honours from foreign societies were conferred on Mr Talbot, but it is 
not easy to record them, from the fact that, with the accustomed 
modesty of true genius, he shunned to display them. 
He died September 17, 1877, in his 78th year. 
Dr James Bryce was born at Killaig, near Coleraine, in the 
north of Ireland, on October 22, 1806. He was the third son of 
a Scottish Presbyterian minister, who had settled there three years 
before, and obtained the earlier part of his education from his 
parents, who were both, in somewhat different ways, persons of re- 
markable intellectual gifts and cultivation. At the age of fourteen he 
was sent to the University of Glasgow, where his father and his eldest 
brother had been before him, and where he graduated M.A., receiv- 
ing from it in after life the honorary degree of LL.D. There he 
