28 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
and the practical farmer. From this fountain, however, all in¬ 
structors desirous of communicating to those concerned a familiar 
and available view of the truth on these subjects will be able to 
draw the most important and reliable materials. In the prepara¬ 
tion of this book, Mr Stephens, in a pleasing letter addressed to 
me, bears testimony to the assiduity, readiness, and disinterested 
zeal of Dr Seller, who declined all remuneration for his labours, 
though offered from a high quarter, and was with difficulty per¬ 
suaded to let his own name stand first on the title-page before 
that of his excellent associate, who in the scientific department of 
the book felt how great a claim Dr Seller had to the commenda¬ 
tions due to the work. 
I am not personally acquainted with his other productions, and 
should be ill qualified to form an estimate of their worth; but a full 
account of these will be found in the notice of Dr Seller contained 
in the “ Edinburgh Medical Journal” for May 1869. That memoir 
is, I believe, from the pen of Dr Alexander Wood, who was on 
the most intimate terms with him, and who has shown his ability 
both to appreciate and to record the talents and virtues of his friend. 
Mention is there made of the great merit of the lectures on Mental 
Diseases which he annually delivered, under the Morrison Endow¬ 
ment, in the College of Physicians. “We have called them 
wonderful,” Dr Wood says; “ they were truly so, whether we have 
respect to the learning they displayed, to the acuteness and 
originality of the views which they enforced, or to the power of 
mental analysis which they exhibited. But,” he adds, “ if ever 
published, they will require some gifted and loving hand to 
popularise the style, and let the whole matter down to the compre¬ 
hension of the busy workers of our every-day world.” 
The same memoir contains a full account of the professional 
honours which he attained. Among the most distinguished of 
these was his appointment as President of the Boyal College of 
Physicians from 1848 to 1850. He was also the librarian of that 
College and a councillor for twenty years. A few years ago they 
did him the honour to request him to sit for his portrait, to be hung 
in the new hall, and the picture thus painted was among the last 
works of the late Sir John Watson G-ordon. Dr Wood thus speaks 
of his personal character with equal kindness and truth :— 
