72 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.* 
T HE Royal Institution is so well and so favourably known as it exists at 
present to tbe majority of Londoners wbo are in tbe least degree in- 
terested in scientific research, that we think an endeavour to publish its 
history, so that it might be known to every enlightened Englishman, was 
one in the right direction. We are glad that it has been undertaken, and 
we know of no one who could do it better, from a longer experience, or with 
a more loving hand than Dr. Bence Jones, the author of the volume now 
before us. We wonder that it has not been attempted before, and we 
cannot but congratulate the author upon his very successful task, and upon 
the general plan he has adopted in his volume. We say this especially 
from the outspoken manner in which he speaks of Davy as compared with 
Faraday, and from his opinion, in which we heartily concur, that Davy was 
“in originality and in eloquence ” far superior to Faraday, while he was not 
inferior to him in his love of research. The book which Dr. Jones has 
given us is not unlike the account of Faraday’s life which was published 
some two or three years ago, but it is very much smaller in extent. It tells 
us of the life of Count Rumford before the Institution was founded, of his 
subsequent life, of the early history of the Institution : of the lives of Pro- 
fessors Garnett, Young, Faraday, Sir Humphry Davy ; of original papers 
relating to the American war ; of original letters from Dr. Thomas Young ; 
and, finally, of the income and expenditure of the Royal Institution to 1814. 
In general plan it is by no means unlike the Life of Faraday j for example, 
when possible, the author has allowed each life to tell its own tale by the 
multitude of documents which he has by most laborious endeavours con- 
gregated together. Thus there is hardly a third page of the book which 
does not contain some one or other important letter bearing upon the subject 
and printed in full. Of course we cannot say how fully these letters tell of 
the life of the Royal Institution. No one who is not connected with the place 
can say whether the book is or is not a full record ; and indeed we imagine that 
very few of those who are there could offer any opinion on the subject. But so 
far as we have been able to judge, Dr. Bence Jones has played the historian’s 
part with admirable skill, just laying out the principal parts of the story 
before the reader, and keeping other parts of no interest and of no im- 
portance in reserve. And he has done so with an openness and a display of 
candid criticism which to our minds is greatly to be praised. Although the 
history is one which of course we cannot dwell further on in these pages, 
it will nevertheless prove of great interest to a large number of intelligent 
scientific readers, and with such we wish it every success. 
* “ The Royal Institution ; its Founders and its first Professors.” By 
Dr. Bence Jones, F.R.S., Honorary Secretary. London: Longmans and 
Go., 1871. 
