er of the many places I have; and, though I was a be painful man, yet the Navy was enough for any man to go through with in his own single place there, which much troubles me, and yet shall provoke me to more and more care and diligence than ever.' When the Naval Board was arraigned before a Parliamentary Committee it was Pepys upon whom fell the main burden of defending their action. He was examined on many points of administration, and came off fairly well, none of his colleagues intervening except Commissioner Pett, who made a lamentable display of ineffectiveness, and Lord Brouncker, who put in 'two or three silly words.' The worst thing perhaps that he says about the President was after hearing the complaints of Mrs Turner as to his behaviour about some house, by which I perceive he is a rotten-hearted, false man, and, therefore I must beware of him accordingly.' Brouncker remained President for fourteen years, and was succeeded by Sir Joseph Williamson, M.P., Keeper of the King's Library at Whitehall, and Clerk to the Council, Sir Christopher Wren, the incomparable architect, Sir John Hoskins, Bart., and Sir Cyril White, who respectively held the appointment for three, two, one, and one years.

It was on Feb. 15, 1665, that Pepys records :

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'Thence with Creed to Gresham College, where I had been by Mr Povy the last week proposed to be admitted a member; and was this day admitted, by signing a book and being taken by the hand of the President, my Lord Brouncker, and some words of admittance said to me. But it is a most acceptable thing to hear their discourse, and see their experiments; which were this day on fire, and how it goes out in a place where the air is not free, and sooner out where the air is exhausted, which they showed by an engine on purpose. After this being done, they to the Crown Tavern, behind the 'Change, and there my Lord and most of the company to a club supper; Sir P. Neale, Sir R. Murray, Dr Clerke, Dr Whistler, Dr Goddard, and others of most eminent worth. Above all, Mr Boyle was at the meeting, and above him Mr Hooke, who is the most, and promises the least, of any man in the world that I ever saw.'

Povy, who introduced him or stood sponsor for him, was Member of Parliament for Liskeard, and held a Vol. 245.-No. 486.

high position at Court and many offices. But apparently he had not the training of an accountant: 'To Whitehall, where a Committee of Tangier, but, Lord! to see what a degree of contempt, nay, scorn, Mr Povy, through his prodigious folly, hath brought on himself in his accounts, that if he be not a man of great interest, he will be kicked out of his employment for a fool.'

In 1684 Pepys was elected President of the Royal Society, and even if his own great Diary had not given him immortality, he would be always remembered because Newton's 'Principia,' accepted and published by the Royal Society, was licensed by him during his term of office, and bears upon it the words, 'Imprimatur. S. Pepys Reg. Soc. Præses, Julii 5, 1686.'

To give some idea of the sort of men who were leaders of Science at the time when Pepys began his two years' Presidency of the Society, we may briefly run through the members of the Council. There was Sir Anthony Dean, the well-known shipmaster at Harwich and Victualling Commissioner of the Navy. He was an inventive man and built ships for Louis XIV. With Pepys he was accused of plotting against the King, but both were soon discharged with the consent of the Crown. Pepys was very much indebted to him for revealing many mysteries of shipwrightry.' Then there was Nathaniel Henshaw, M.D., of Leyden, who practised in Dublin, and was the author of a curious little treatise called the Aero Chalinos,' which went into a second edition. A third was Abraham Hill, a successful man of business and a good linguist, who devoted his spare time to collecting books and coins and lived in Gresham College. He was the author of a Life of Isaac Barrow. The Dean of York, Dr Thomas Gale, was also a member. He was educated under Busby at Westminster, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Later he became Regius Professor of Greek, but resigned it to become High Master of St Paul's School. He married Barbara, a daughter of Thomas Pepys of Impington, a connexion of the diarist. Dr Frederick Slare, a pupil of Thomas Sydenham and an M.D. of Oxford, was a member. He experimented a good deal with phosphorus and carried on many investigations into the physiology of the blood; but his chief claim to fame appears to be that he

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brought into use Epsom Salts. Dr Martin Lister, of St John's College, Cambridge, was also there. He L practised in York, and was Physician to Queen Anne, Pay and he was one of the first of British zoologists to study spiders. The eminent astronomer, Mr Halley, was further on the Council. He had been elected to the Fellowship at the unusually early age of 22. He succeeded Flamsteed as Astronomer Royal in 1721. During the last few years of his life he seems to have dosed himself perhaps unduly, for at last, tiring of doctors and tiring of his doctors' prescriptions, he called for a glass of wine, drank it, and almost immediately expired. After all, he was in his eighty-sixth year. There was also Mr William Musgrave, of Winchester and New College, who practised at Oxford and Exeter. He was Secretary of the Society for a short period in 1685, but on retiring received a service of plate. An ancestor of the present Earl of Berkeley, the well-known physicist, George, first Earl and ninth Baron, was a Christ Church man, and was one of the Commissioners who went to the Hague to invite the return of Charles II. His chief remains are various religious works. Mr Daniel Colwall was a wealthy citizen who was Treasurer for fourteen years. He twice presented the Society with 507. and a collection of rarities which so stirred the imagination of Dr Grew that he inscribed in their catalogue the following sentence: Besides the particular regard you had to the Royal Society itself, which seeming (in the opinion of some) to look a little pale, you intend hereby to put some fresh blood into their cheeks, pouring out your box of oyntment, not in order to their burial, but their resurrection.'

Sir John Hoskins, second Baronet, as we mentioned above, was President of the Society. He also had been educated under Busby at Westminster. Evelyn had been asked to stand for the Presidency, but retired in favour of Sir John, who is described as 'a most learned virtuoso as well as a lawyer,' but who was one of the most hard-featured men of his time.' A portrait of Sir John and his wife by Peter Lely is now in the possession of a descendant, the present Bishop of Southwell. Sir Cyril Wyche, another Councillor, was probably born at Constantinople, where his father was Ambassador, and

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was named after his godfather, Cyril the Patriarch. was one of the original ninety-eight men interested in Natural Knowledge that were elected as original members in 1668. He married a daughter of a niece of John Evelyn, who speaks of Wyke as an honourable and learned gentleman. John Creed, whose name occurs s0 frequently through Pepys's Diary, seems to have sprung from somewhat humble origin, but he married the well-known philanthropist, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Pickering, Bart, whose wife was sister of the first Earl of Sandwich. In 1660 he was nominated Deputy-Treasurer of the Fleet, and in 1662 Secretary to the Commissioners for Tangiers. The following year he was received as F.R.S. Pepys both feared and disliked him as a puritan and as one who was averse to the King's return. However, Creed adapted himself to the times and acquired considerable wealth.

Francis Aston, another member, was elected Secretary in 1685, and, according to Halley, he suddenly, after a very short period, threw it up after such a very passionate manner, that I fear he has lost many of his friends by it.' In order to avoid being similarly treated on any future occasion, the Society decided to have only honorary secretaries. The first two were Sir John Hoskins and Dr Thomas Gale. But the quarrel did not last long, for Mr Aston was presented with a gratuity of 60%., and he left the Society in 1715, a small estate in Lincolnshire, a considerable number of books, and 4451. There was also Mr Hook, of whom more will be said later; Mr Waller, who was Secretary to the Society for twenty years and of whom beyond the editing of the transactions, I have found little record of his activities; and finally, a Mr Meredith, of whom I can find nothing at all except that his Christian name was Roger. These men who formed the Council of the Royal Society do not differ very markedly from their successors. There was perhaps rather a larger proportion of medical men in Pepys's time, and the business merchant that he mentions is largely replaced at the present day by the big commercial chemist and the engineer.

Pepys records many curious experiments while he was a frequenter of Gresham House. In his time the air-pump had but recently been invented, and there are

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numerous experiments being made with it. On March 22, 1665, he writes as follows: 'Thence to Gresham College, nai and there did see a kitling killed almost quite, but that we could not quite kill her, with such a way: the air out of a receiver, wherein she was put, and then the air being let in upon her revives her immediately; and this air is to be made by putting together a liquor and some body that ferments, the steam of that do do the work.' Many experiments were also made with poisons on animals. The Florence poison mentioned in the next extract is probably an aqueous solution of White Arsenic.* 'To Gresham College, where we saw some experiments upon a hen, a dog, and a cat, of the Florence poison. The first it made for a time drunk, but it came to itself again quickly; the second it made to vomit mightily, but no other hurt. The third I did not stay to see the effect of it.' The great poison of Maccassa,' the gum of the tree Schleichera trijuga with which the Malays poison their arrows, was also experimented with: Anon to Gresham College, where, among other good discourse, there was tried the great poison of Maccassa upon a dog, but it had no effect all the time we sat there.' The action of opium was being investigated, and on May 16, 1664, Pepys goes

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'with Mr Pierce, the surgeon, to see an experiment of killing a dog, by letting opium into his hind legs. He and Dr Clerke did fail mightily in hitting the vein, and in effect did not do the business after many trials; but, with the little they got in, the dog did presently fall asleep, and so lay till we cut him up, and a little dog also, which they put it down his throat; he also staggered first, and then fell asleep, and so continued. Whether he recovered or no, after I was gone, I know not.'

The transfusion of blood attracted great attention, and he records how 'Dr Crome told me that, at the meeting at Gresham College to-night, which, it seems, they now have every Wednesday again, there was a

* The Libarian of the Chemical Society has kindly looked up the tests referred to by Pepys and has been good enough to tell me that the action of this poison on animals would be consistent with poisoning by White Arsenic. There was a great outbreak of poisoning in Italy about the middle of the 17th century. This probably accounts for the name.