of nature; he has been present, and assisted with his own hands, at the performing of many of their experiments, in his gardens, his parks, and on the river."*

On the 15th of July, 1662, a charter was passed incorporating the Society under the name of the Royal Society, and constituting William Lord Brouncker the first president; Moray, Boyle, Brereton, Digby, Neile, Slingsbey, Petty, Drs. Wallis, Timothy Clarke, Wilkins, and Ent, William Areskine, Esq., cup-bearer to his majesty, Drs. Goddard and Christopher Wren, William Balle, Esq., Matthew Wren, Esq., Evelyn, T. Henshaw, Esq., Dudley Palmer, Esq., and Oldenburg, the first council; Balle, the first treasurer; and Wilkins and Oldenburg the first secretaries. And some additional privileges were granted by a second charter which passed the privy seal on the 22nd of April, 1663.† From a list drawn up on the 21st of May, in that year, it appears that the number of members was then a hundred and fifteen.t Among them, besides the names that have been already mentioned, are those of James Lord Annesley, John Aubrey, Esq. (the author of the Miscellanies), George Duke of Buckingham, George Lord Berkeley, Robert Lord Bruce, Isaac Barrow, B.D., Walter Lord Cavendish, Dr. Walter Charleton, John Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, Henry Marquis of Dorchester, William Earl of Devonshire, John Dryden, Esq. (the poet), John Graunt, Esq. (author of the Observations upon the Bills of Mortality), Mr. Robert Hooke (already a very active member, although the only one whose name stands thus undecorated by any designation either civil or academic), Alexander Earl of Kincardine, John Lord Lucas, John Viscount Massareene, James Earl of Northampton, Dr. Walter Pope (author of the wellknown song called the Old Man's Wish, and other pieces of verse), Edward Earl of Sandwich, Thomas Spratt, M.A. (afterwards Bishop of Rochester), Edmund Waller, Esq. (the poet). The Royal Society, we thus perceive, besides the array of titled names which it doubtless owed in part to the patronage of the court, had at this time to boast of a considerable sprinkling of the cultivators of poetry and general literature among its men of science and experimentalists.§ It had however been specially * History of the Royal Society, Lond. 1667, p. 133.

† See the first Charter in Birch, i. 88-96; the second, 221-230. Birch, i. 239.

§ On the 7th of December, 1664, "it being suggested that there were several persons of the Society whose genius was very proper and inclined to

constituted for the promotion of natural or physical science: Regalis Societas Londini pro scientia naturali promovenda, or the Royal Society of London for improving natural knowledge, is the full title by which it is described in the second royal charter, and in the English oath therein directed to be taken by the president.*

We have a curious account of the Royal Society at this early date from Louis XIV.'s historiographer, M. Samuel Sorbiere, who came over to this country in 1663, and after his return to France published a narrative of his adventures.† Sorbiere's book is on the whole a somewhat coxcombical performance, and, of course, in a hastily written description of a foreign country, in which he spent only a few months, he has made several mistakes as to matters of fact; but he may be trusted at least for the outside appearances of things which he saw with his own eyes, and which he evidently does not intend to misrepresent. One of his principal objects in visiting England, he states, was to renew his acquaintance with some old friends, and to be introduced to other learned persons here. One of those whom he had formerly known was Mr. Hobbes, whom, he tells us, he found much the same man as he had seen him fourteen years before, "and even," he adds, "in the same posture in his chamber as he was wont to be every afternoon, wherein he betook himself to his studies after he had been walking about all the morning. This he did for his health, of which he ought to have the greatest regard, he being at this time seventy-eight years of age. Besides which he plays so long at tennis once a week till he is quite tired. I found very little alteration in his face, and none at all in the vigour of his mind, strength of memory, and cheerfulness

improve the English tongue, and particularly for philosophical purposes, it was voted that there be a committee for improving the English language, and that they meet at Sir Peter Wyche's lodgings in Gray's Inn once or twice a month, and give an account of their proceedings to the Society when called upon." A committee of twenty-one members was accordingly appointed for this purpose: among them were Dryden, Evelyn, Spratt, and Waller.-Birch, i. 499, 500.

* In the first Charter it is called simply the Royal Society (Regalis Societas); but its object is there still farther limited to mere experimental science" ad rerum naturalium artiumque utilium scientias experimentorum fide ulterius promovendas."

† Relation d'un Voyage en Angleterre, 1664: translated under the title of A Voyage to England, containing many things relating to the state of learning, religion, and other curiosities of that kingdom, 1709.

of spirit; all which he perfectly retained."* Hobbes, who in fact was at this time no more than seventy-five, and who lived and wrote for sixteen or seventeen years longer, had already involved himself in his famous mathematical controversy with Dr. Wallis and the new society, which speedily became so angry and scurrilous on both sides-especially on that of Hobbes, who was in the wrong; but it does not appear either that Sorbiere was prepossessed against the Society, or they against him in the first instance, by his connexion with their great assailant. Perhaps, however, the circumstance was remembered afterwards, when some of the more zealous members found themselves dissatisfied with the Frenchman's published narrative, and Spratt, already the appointed historian of the Society, and vain of his reputation as the finest or smartest writer of the day, undertook the task of exposing its blunders and calumnies.†

The Society elected Sorbiere a member while he was in England; and he on his part speaks with great respect both of the Society as a body and of those of its members whom he has occasion to mention. Of Sir Robert Moray, he says, "It was a wonderful, or rather a very edifying thing, to find a person employed in matters of state, and of such excellent merit, and one who had been engaged a great part of his life in warlike commands and the affairs of the cabinet, apply himself in making machines in St. James's Park and adjusting telescopes. All this we have seen him do with great application. I made him frequent visits, very much to my satisfaction, having never had the honour to see him but I learned something of him." He adds, He was so kind as to introduce me to Prince Rupert, who is of the same frank temper, kind, modest, very curious, and takes no state upon him. . . . . Sir Robert Moray brought me likewise into the king's presence, who is a lover of the curiosities of art and nature. He took the pains to bring me into the Royal Society, and had the goodness, almost every time that I attended there, to seat me next himself, that so he might interpret to me whatever was said in English."‡

An account is afterwards given of the origin of the Royal Society, in which we are told that during the late civil war

* English Translation, p. 27.

† Observations on M. de Sorbiere's Voyage into England; written to Dr. Wren, professor of astronomy in Oxford, 1708 (first printed in 1665).

English Translation, p. 31.

"persons of quality, having no court to make, applied themselves to their studies; some turning their heads to chemistry, others to mechanism, mathematics, or natural philosophy." "Those same persons," proceeds our author, "who had found their account in their respective studies, would not, after the king's return. .. be guilty of so much ingratitude as to leave them and take upon them an idle court life; but they chose rather to intersperse these sorts of entertainments with their other diversions; and so the Lords Digby, Boyle, Brouncker, Moray, Devonshire, Worcester, and divers others (for the English nobility are all of them learned and polite), built elaboratories, made machines, opened mines, and made use of an hundred sorts of artists to find out some new invention or other. The king himself is not devoid of this curiosity; nay, he has caused a famous chymist to be brought over from Paris, for whom he has built a very fine elaboratory in St. James's Park. But his majesty more particularly takes great delight in finding out useful experiments in navigation, wherein he has immense knowledge." He then notices with great admiration Boyle's pneumatic engine, or air-pump, and other inventions of some of the members of the Royal Society. He states, by mistake, that the Society had already begun a library adjoining to the gallery through which they passed from their hall of meeting in Gresham College: 'they have as yet no library," Spratt observes, "but only a repository for their instruments and rarities."† Spratt is scandalised at the triviality of the description given of the meetings of the Society; but the "mean circumstances," the enumeration of which he denounces as unworthy of so noble a theme, are interesting enough at this distance of time. First is noticed the usher or beadle, "who goes before the president with a mace, which he lays down on the table when the Society have taken their places:" this is the gilt silver mace the Society still possess, the gift of their first royal patron. It was till recently believed to be the same which was formerly used in the House of Commons, and which was removed from the table by one of the soldiers on Cromwell's order to "take away that bauble," when he came down and turned out the remnant of the Long Parliament on the famous 20th of April, 1653; but this appears to be a mistake. "The room where the Society meets," the account goes on, "is large and wainscoted; there is a large table before * English Translation, p. 33. † Observations, p. 166.

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the chimney, with seven or eight chairs covered with green cloth about it, and two rows of wooden and matted benches to lean on, the first being higher than the other, in form like an amphitheatre. The president and council are elective; they mind no precedency in the Society, but the president sits at the middle of the table in an elbow chair, with his back to the chimney. The secretary sits at the end of the table on his left hand, and they have each of them pen, ink, and paper before them. I saw nobody sit on the chairs; I think they are reserved for persons of great quality, or those who have occasion to draw near to the president. All the other members take their places as they think fit, and without any ceremony; and, if any one comes in after the Society is fixed, nobody stirs, but he takes a place presently where he can find it, that so no interruption may be given to him that speaks. The president has a little wooden mace in his hand with which he strikes the table when he would command silence; they address their discourse to him bareheaded till he makes a sign for them to put on their hats; and there is a relation given in a few words of what is thought proper to be said concerning the experiments proposed by the secretary. There is nobody here eager to speak, that makes a long harangue, or intent upon saying all he knows; he is never interrupted that speaks, and differences of opinion cause no manner of resentment, nor as much as a disobliging way of speech; there is nothing seemed to me to be more civil, respectful, and better managed than this. meeting; and, if there are any private discourses held between any while a member is speaking, they only whisper, and the least sign from the president causes a sudden stop, though they have not told their mind out. I took special notice of this conduct in a body consisting of so many persons, and of such different nations. . . . In short, it cannot be discerned that any authority prevails here; and, whereas those who are mere mathematicians favour Des Cartes more than Gassendus, the literati, on the other side, are more inclined to the latter. But both of them have hitherto demeaned themselves with so much moderation that no different hypotheses or principles have been a means to break in upon the good harmony of the Society."* Spratt takes fire at this statement about the authority of Descartes with the mathematicians, and of Gassendi with the men of general learning: "Neither of these two men," he says, "bear any sway amongst * English Translation, p. 38.