Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/27

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Bond Cabbell,Esq.: James Carson, M.D.; \Villiam Tierney Clark, Esq.; George Edward Frere, Esq.; Thomas Graham, Esq., M.A.; Charles Holland, M.D.; VViiliam Hopkins, Esq., M.A.; Robert Hunter, Esq.; James F. W, Johnston, Esq., M.A.; Richard Par- tridge, Esq.; Joseph Ellison Portlock, Esq.; John Urpnth Rasa trick, Esq.; John Forbes Royle, M.D.; Frederic C. Skey, Esq.; John F. Smith, Esq.; Samuel Solly, Esq. ; the Rev. William Wal- ton; J. R. VVellsted, Esq.; Richard VVestmacott, Esq.; William Archibald Armstrong White, Esq.; William Page Wood, Esq.

0n the Foreign List—M. Becquerel; Prof. Ehrenberg; Ad- miral von Krusenstern; Chevalier Mirbel.

The following Address of His Royal Highness the President to the present Meeting, was read from the Chair by the Chairman.

GENTLEMEN,

WHEN I last had the honour of addressing you from this Chair, I ventured to express a hope that the happy restoration of my sight, and the continued possession of health, would have enabled me to discharge, with becoming regularity, the duties of President of this Society during those portions of the year in which I am generally resident in London : the fulfilment, however, of that hepe was un— happily frustrated by along and dangerous illness, which confined me for several months to my apartments and from the effects of which I have hardly yet entirely recovered. I trust, Gentlemen, you will pardon me if I look forward wifll brighter hopes to the prospects of another year; and if I hesitate to regard the unhappy experience of that which is past as a premonition of the fate which awaits me in those which are to come; if such were my assurance or reasonable fear, I should acquiesce in the duty and propriety of at once retiring from this Chair and of no longer soliciting the re- newal of an honour which I have enjoyed for so many years: but if it should be the pleasure of that good Providence, whose chastise- ments and whose mercies I have so often before experienced, to dis- able me from presiding over this Society in such a manner as might be considered necessary for the protection and maintenance of its just interests and dignity, I should bow with humble resignation to the expression of His will, and resign into other hands the discharge of those duties for which I should feel myself no longer qualified. Since the last Annual Session of this Society we have lost, Gen- tlemen, a most munificent patron and benefactor, by the demise of“ our late most gracious Sovereign, King \Villiam the Fourth, of whom it is difficult for me to speak in terms which do justice to my feelings. He was, indeed, not less distinguished by the exalted station which he filled, than by the warmth and sincerity of his affections as a- husband, a brother, and a friend; by the undisguised frankness and- truth of his character as a man; and as a monarch, by his patriotic zeal to increase the efficiency and secure the permanence of the great institutions of his country and to extend to all classes of his subjects the blessings of peace and knowledge and the protection