In looking through the entire list of Fellows one finds it includes men of no less varied attainments than the 115 who first signed the roll, for although members are elected as being of special eminence in some particular sphere, they are not necessarily men of science. In the early years these, as stated by Sir Archibald Geikie, numbered only one-fifth of the whole. Among them was Robert Boyle, the founder of the Boyle Lecture, and the most illustrious physicist of the time. His name alone should have been sufficient to remove the stigma cast upon the Society by some—that it tended to the subversion of religion. His death occurred on the last day of the year 1691. Among the members who attended his funeral at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on the 6th of January, 1692, was his great friend and co-worker in all matters relating to the Society, Evelyn. Bishop Burnet preached the funeral sermon, in which he said that the deceased "made God and religion the scope of all his excellent talents"; and in his 'History of his own Times' he states that "Boyle was looked on by all who knew him as a very perfect pattern who delighted in nothing so much as the doing good." His modest, retiring disposition caused him to refuse all honours; he preferred to devote his leisure to quiet study. Evelyn records on the 30th of November, 1680:—
"The anniversary election at the Royal Society, which brought me to London, where was chosen President that excellent person and great philosopher Mr. Robert Boyle, who indeed ought to have been the very first, but neither his infirmity nor his modesty could now any longer excuse him."
His modesty, however, evidently did "excuse him," for Sir Christopher Wren, as will be seen by the list of Presidents, was elected on the same day. It is strange that Evelyn should not mention this, but in his Diary, under November 30th, 1681, he says:—
"Sir Christopher Wren chosen President, Mr. Austine secretary, with Dr. Plot, the ingenious author of 'The History of Oxfordshire.'"
The Church was well represented by such men as Wilkins, afterwards Bishop of Chester; Ward, Bishop of Exeter, afterwards translated to Salisbury; Sprat, the first historian of the Society, afterwards Bishop of Rochester; and Isaac Barrow, the first occupant of the Lucasian Chair at Cambridge, in which he was succeeded by Isaac Newton. Among the peers was the Duke of Buckingham who took out a patent for glass-making. Literature, it has already been stated, was represented by many well-known names; while the number of poets caused the Society to deserve the name of "a nest of singing birds." In later years it has numbered Tennyson as one of its Fellows.
Among those who contributed to the establishment of the Society Evelyn stands out prominently. He was strongly in favour of extending its usefulness by having a college built within twenty-five miles of London, and, had he not felt obliged to provide for his dependents, would, as he wrote to Boyle, cheerfully have devoted his small fortune to that end.
Evelyn's death on the 27th of February, 1705, must have been a great loss to the Society, for he not only worked for it himself, but created enthusiasm in others. It was his suggestion that "his excellent and ingenious friend" Abraham Cowley should compose a laudatory ode on the Society. Evelyn wrote to him on the 12th of March, 1667:—
"Suppose our good friend [Sprat] were publishing some eulogies on the Royal Society, and by deducing the original progress, and advantages of their design, would bespeak it some veneration in the world? Has Mr. Cowley no inspirations for it? Would it not hang the most heroic wreath about his temples? Or can he desire a nobler or a fuller argument either for the softest airs or the loudest echoes, for the smoothest or briskest notes of his Pindaric Lyre? There be those who ask, What have the Royal Society done? Where their College? I need not instruct you how to answer or confound these persons, who are able to make even these inform blocks and stones dance into order, and charm them into better sense. Or if their insolent press, you are capable to show how they have laid solid foundations to perfect all noble arts, and reform all imperfect science … We have a library, a repository, and an assembly of as worthy and great persons as the world has any; and yet we are sometimes the subject of satire and the songs of the drunkards; have a King for our founder, and yet want a Mæcenas; and above all a spirit like yours, to raise us up benefactors, and to compel them to think the design of the Royal Society as worthy of their regards, and as capable to embalm their names, as the most heroic enterprise, or anything antiquity has celebrated; and I am even amazed at the wretchedness of
