OBITUARY NOTICES. 
395 
the ensuing discussions, and occasionally gave us a paper of 
his own. He was at one time president of the society. 
Dr. Godding was a member of the Philosophical Society 
during twenty years, but I cannot find that he ever read 
anything before us. His own studies were exclusively pro¬ 
fessional, and he had that recommendable quality of never 
speaking of what he did not thoroughly understand. Though 
firm and courageous in the discharge of his official duties, 
Dr. Godding was essentially a modest, unobtrusive gentleman. 
His published writings were numerous, but all related to his 
especial line of work. He was a member of many distin¬ 
guished scientific and medical societies, a list of which forms 
an appendix to this memoir. 
In his family relations Dr. Godding was to be seen at his 
best. Adored by his wife and children, he repaid their devo¬ 
tion with all the tenderness and love of his great heart. His 
widow, with two daughters and a son, survive him. In the 
spring of 1899 his health began to fail, undermined by his 
many years of arduous and unselfish labors, and he died on 
the 6th of May, 1899. 
Some time ago, at a meeting of the Literary Society, I hap¬ 
pened to quote to him a stanza from a poem the title of which 
was “ Evening thoughts on death.” The author was Sir John 
Bowring, well known as a scholar and linguist, but whose 
poems and translations are less remembered than they de¬ 
serve to be. The good doctor’s eyes moistened at the recital, 
for he had a keen sensibility to the tender and pathetic in 
poetry. He was younger than I, and I little thought that I 
should furnish a modest tribute to his memory by quoting 
the same stanza. When I think of this good man at rest in 
the peaceful cemetery in his native town, his life-work well 
done, his father and four generations of his forbears lying 
around him, and the beautiful New England scenery which 
he loved so well hallowing his grave, I think the lines in 
question singularly appropriate. This is the stanza : * 
* Bowring (John) : Matins and vespers, 1823. 
