Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

In 1432 arrangements were made for a water-supply to the hospital from Islington (Iseldon); and the "waste of water at the Cisterne" was to be conveyed "to the Gailes of Newgate and Ludgate for the reliefe of the prisoners."

Cock Lane, near the hospital, has, I fear, no connection with brother John Cok (ii., p. 53); it was so called from the shops of the cooks who prepared refreshments for the crowds who came to Smithfield. It was at the end of Cock Lane that the fire of London stopped in 1666, but it is better known as the scene of the Cock Lane ghost.

Sir Richard Owen, who had been a student at St Bartholomew's, told Dr Moore (ii., p. 54) a grim story of Cock Lane. It was there that the hospital authorities hired a house for the reception of the dead bodies of criminals hung at Newgate. "Owen was in a room on the first floor with Sir William Blizard, the President, who was attired in court dress as the proper costume for an official act. They heard the shouts of the crowd and then the noise of an approaching cart, which turned down Cock Lane and stopped at the door. Then came the heavy steps of the executioner tramping up the stairs. He had the body of a man who had been hanged on his back, and entering the room, let it fall on a table. . . . Sir William Blizard with a scalpel made a small cut over the breast-bone, and bowed to the executioner. This was, I suppose, the formal recognition of the purpose for which the body had been delivered. The rumbling of the cart, the contrast between the stiff figure of Sir William Blizard in his court dress and the executioner in coarse clothes, and the thud of each dead body on the table remained in Owen's memory to the end of his days; and his skill in telling the story has made me remember it nearly every time that I have walked down Cock Lane."

On 1st March 1711, a piece of literature destined "to be famous as long as English is read, was published near the end of Duck Lane in Little Britain." This was the first number of the _Spectator_, and "all London read it and enjoyed it, from the motto to the end." The author (ii., p. 63) imagines Mr Addison walking down Duck Lane the Wednesday evening before its appearance, from Mr Buckley's in Little Britain where he had corrected his last revise.

Sir Norman Moore adds: "For me . . . Duke Street, Little Britain, has innumerable memories of twenty-one happy years. I lived there as a student and as house physician, and then as Warden of the College of St Bartholomew's." He adds that his election as Warden was his first professional success, which was followed by a place on the permanent staff of the hospital. It was the home of his early married life, and here his eldest child was born. He need not have apologised (as he does); such details will surely please all sympathetic readers.

There is an interest in even the modern inhabitants of Little Britain. We hear of dealers in gold lace and gold leaf, and also a representative of that rare genus the teapot-handle maker. These handles could not be worked on a lathe, and had to be sawn out of the ivory. Dr Moore learned that in all London there was but one other teapot-handle maker: he felt what a favour it was when the great man mended a fan for Mrs Moore.

It is pleasant to meet with the well-known lines from Wordsworth's poem of "Poor Susan":--

"Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside."

I regret to say that our author quotes only to criticise, since he denies that the mists of Lothbury are visible in Cheapside.

In 1535 the hospital estate was valued at 305 pounds, 6s. 7d. according to one authority, and at 371 pounds, 13s. 2d. by another. St Bartholomew's was then the third hospital in London in order of wealth. Henry VII.'s Hospital in the Savoy and the New Hospital of Our Lady outside Bishopsgate were richer (ii., p. 125).

The Act of Dissolution was passed in 1536, and the property of the hospital was given into the King's hands in 1537. Thus the "old order, which had existed for more than four hundred years, was at an end, and the hospital was in the eye of the law vacant and altogether destitute of a master, and of all fellows or brethren" (ii., p. 126).

"Augustinians, Benedictines, Carthusians, Gilbertines, Franciscans, Dominicans, and more, all were banished from their ancient homes. . . . St Bartholomew's Hospital was one of the few places where the injured tree of charity began to put forth new branches, and soon flourished again" (ii., p. 148).

The King, after five years' delay, granted, on 23rd June 1544, {150} letters patent reconstituting the hospital for its original uses. William Turges, the King's Chaplain, was the first Master, and "the body corporate was to be called 'The Master and Chaplains of the Hospital of St Bartholomew in West Smithfield, near London.'" The grant did little for the poor, but it prevented the destruction of St Bartholomew's and carried on its existence.

The figure of Henry VIII. is above the Smithfield Gate of the hospital. A full-length portrait of him hangs at the end of the Great Hall. He is also represented in a window of the hall handing the letters patent to the Lord Mayor and citizens. "Thus," says the author, "do we commemorate this destroying King, who might have taken away all the estate of St Bartholomew's, but only took a small portion of it" (ii., p. 161).

The constitution under which the hospital is ruled was established in 1547, and confirmed, with an alteration in but one important particular, in 1782. "Most of the offices created by the Deed of Covenant of December 1546, and the letters patent of January 1547, exist at the present day. The treasurer, the almoners, the physician, the surgeon, the rentar, the steward, the matron and sisters, the porter bearing a figure of St Bartholomew on his staff of office, and the beadles with silver badges engraved with the hospital arms, are all parts of the present life of the hospital" (ii., p. 191).

Beside the grave benefactors of the hospital we hear of serio-comic personages who remind us of the curious lunatics recorded by de Morgan in his _Budget of Paradoxes_. Thus in 1774 Mr W. Gardiner offered 2000 pounds to St Bartholomew's "as a sacrifice for God's having put it in his power to overturn Sir Isaac Newton's system" (ii., p. 245).

From 1547 the treasurer was "a very important officer, but the president also took an active part in the affairs of the hospital." But now the treasurer is the responsible head of the administration.

In 1518 the College of Physicians was founded by Henry VIII. (ii., p. 408) on the advice of Dr Thomas Linacre. Its active existence began in his house in Knightrider Street. The most pious and the most learned men of England were Linacre's intimate friends, and the "example of his life, as felt in the College of Physicians, continues a living force to this day" (ii., p. 411).

Dr John Caius (ii., p. 412) was a devoted follower of Linacre; he was born 1510, went to Cambridge in 1529, and in 1533 was elected Fellow of Gonville Hall. In 1539 he went to Padua, where Vesalius, the founder of modern anatomy, was Professor. In 1547 Caius was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians, and not long after he came to live within St Bartholomew's Hospital.

Caius wrote on the sweating sickness in 1552, and his work was printed near St Bartholomew's. "Thus were the proofs of the first medical monograph in the English tongue, and, indeed, the first book written by an English physician . . . on a particular disease, corrected in St Bartholomew's" (ii., p. 418).

Caius was in 1555 elected President of the College of Physicians, to which he presented their silver caduceus with four serpents at its head, a book of statutes, and a seal. In 1557-69 he was engaged in the refoundation and building at Cambridge of what was to be known as Gonville and Caius College. On his death his viscera were buried in St Bartholomew's the Less, while the rest of his body was placed in an alabaster tomb in the chapel of his college with the inscription: "Fui Caius."

We meet with many proofs of the consideration shown by the authorities towards the patients. For instance (ii., p. 279):--

13_th March_ 1568.--"This day it is graunted by the courte that Griffen Davye shall departe forthwith into his countrye, and also that he shall have 20s. in his purse to bringe him home in consideracion that he is lame and impotent."

Again (ii., p. 293), "30_th April_ 1597.--Ordered that curtaynes be provided for certain beds of the poor." The author adds that "moveable curtains hang over the beds to this day, and are of great use in providing privacy when patients are washing and dressing."

We meet with some trifling records of great events. Thus on 7th May 1660 it is ordered that "the shield of the States armes being the Redd Cross and Harpe be taken downe in the Court Hall and the King's arms put in the Roome thereof."

But even the King could not impose on the hospital. Thus in 1661 there was a vacancy for a surgeon at the Lock. The King wrote in favour of John Knight, but John Dorrington was elected (ii., p. 316).

In 1666 the great fire of London was only prevented from reaching the hospital by pulling down houses. The consequent loss to the hospital may be set down as 2000 pounds per annum. We are constantly meeting in the history of St Bartholomew's interesting lights on the natural history of the patients. An entry as to the supply of beer (of which, by the way, the patients were allowed three pints daily) pleases me:--"Sir Jonathan Reymond, Knt. and Alderman, is to serve the matron's cellar. Alderman Lt.-col. Freind is to supply small beer" (ii., p. 339). These personages doubtless belonged to the established church, for dissenters were not allowed to serve the hospital with any commodity.

An entry under 26th February 1704 throws a sinister light on the condition of the wards:--"Elizabeth Bond did propose to kill and clear the beds and wards of bugs within this house for 6s. per bed." I hope Elizabeth Bond was more careful in her work than was the writer of the resolution (ii., p. 352).

It is interesting to come across the following:--

21_st July_ 1737.--It was resolved "that the thanks of this Court be given to William Hogarth, Esquire . . . for his generous and free gift of the painting of the great staircase. . . ."

5_th Jan._ 1758.--A committee considered the subject of visiting prisoners in Newgate, but the plan was apparently thrown over because prisoners were found entirely destitute of clothes, bedding, etc.

Even in the history of Mr Pickwick (chapter xlii.) we read that "not a week passes over our heads, but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some . . . must inevitably expire in the slow agonies of want, if they were not relieved by their fellow prisoners."

It is curious to find that in 1821 the function of the hospital as a school for students of medicine was something of a novelty. The reform seems to have been due to Abernethy.

In 1845, on 13th May, a unanimous resolution against female governors was carried. Dr Moore adds that "about half a century later they were admitted, and no disastrous consequences have ensued." In 1851 Miss Elizabeth Blackwell was actually admitted as a student, and strange to say with satisfactory results.

The author relates {154} how he was walking back to St Bartholomew's one hot summer afternoon when he saw at a small second-hand book shop Paulus Jovius' history of his own times, printed in 1550. Within it Woodhull the collector had noted that he bought it at the sale of Dr Askew's books. Next day Sir Norman met Robert Browning and mentioned the book to him: "He had read it, and recalled passages in it, and told most pleasantly how the bishop had concealed the manuscript in a chest . . . when the Spaniards took Rome, and how a Spanish captain found out that Paulus Jovius valued the manuscript, and so only gave it up on receiving a promise of the emoluments of a living in the gift of the church" (ii., p. 539).

Sir George Burrows became physician in 1841:--"He did not hesitate to express censure where he thought censure required. A clergyman at St Bartholomew's rather aggressively invited his criticism on a sermon which he had just delivered. 'Let me tell you, sir,' said Burrows, 'that many a man has been put in a lunatic asylum for much less nonsense than you preached to us to-day'" (ii., p. 561).

Dr Frederic John Farre was elected physician, 1854. Farre was captain of Charterhouse School during Thackeray's first year there. And in _The Adventures of Philip_ the author tells how one of the boys laughed because Firmin's eyes "filled with tears at some ribald remark, and was gruffly rebuked by Sampson major [_i.e._, Dr Farre], the cock of the whole school; and with the question, 'Don't you see the poor beggar's in mourning, you great brute?' was kicked about his business."

Percivall Pott was elected assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew's in 1745 and surgeon in 1749, holding office till 1787. There is in the hospital a fine portrait of him in a crimson coat, by Sir Joshua Reynolds. A very old lady, whose mother's medical attendant had been dresser to Percivall Pott, told Dr Moore, on the authority of the above practitioner, that Pott often came to the hospital in a red coat, and sometimes wore a sword.

Occasional teaching in medicine had been carried out from the seventeenth century onwards, but the originator _par excellence_ was John Abernethy, who was born in 1764 and became a pupil at St Bartholomew's in 1779. He taught anatomy in a really scientific manner, but he did not succeed in permanently raising it from the region of cram which in my day at Cambridge it shared with Materia Medica.

Many stories are told of his abrupt manner with his private patients. Charles Darwin used to tell us of a patient entering Abernethy's consulting room, holding out his hand and saying, "Bad cut," to which Abernethy replied, "Poultice"; the patient departed, only to return in a day or two, when his laconic report, "Cut worse," was answered by "More poultice." Finally he came back cured and enquired what he owed the surgeon, who replied, "Nothing; you are the best patient I ever had, and I could not take a fee."

Sir James Paget was assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew's in 1847; he became surgeon in 1861; he resigned the position in 1871, and died in 1899. He was the chief surgeon of the Victorian age, and his success may be estimated by the fact that his professional income rose to 10,000 pounds per annum. He freely gave of his store of knowledge, for instance in Charles Darwin's _The Expression of the Emotions_. William Morrant Baker was elected a surgeon of St Bartholomew's in 1882. He was noted for the neatness of his dress, and Dr Francis Harris, who sometimes wore country clothes, told Dr Moore that he occasionally hid in the porter's lodge to avoid Baker's critical eyes. He warned Dr Moore (who was a candidate for the Wardenship of the College) that those same eyes were on him in the matter of dress.

Sir William Church, who wrote on the Hospital Pharmacopoeia, gives some astonishing facts. From 1866 to 1875 the annual consumption of sulphate of magnesia was 42.5 hundredweights, _i.e._, about two cart-loads. "In 1836 8.75 tons of linseed meal were used, while from 1876 to 1885 the annual average was 15.75 tons, but in 1911 the poultice was so nearly obsolete that 3 cwt. sufficed. In 1837 96,300 leeches were used; . . . in 1868 the number had sunk to 2200. . . . It is now (1911) about 700" (ii., p. 714).

Chloroform first appears in the apothecaries' ledger on 22nd November 1847, just one week after the publication of Sir James Y. Simpson's treatise.

A pound of pure carbolic acid was used in 1865, in 1911 the quantity was 2.5 tons. Nurses have increased from a "matron and eleven sisters in the reign of King Edward VI. to the matron, assistant-matron, thirty-eight sisters, and 268 nurses who form the highly trained nursing staff of the present day" (ii., p. 778).

I cannot resist quoting a reminiscence of Mr Mark Morris, the Steward of the Hospital, who was born early enough to remember "several cases . . . of wives who had been sold in Smithfield. A rope was loosely thrown round them, and as the seller handed the end of the rope to the buyer, the buyer gave him a shilling. The new marriage was regarded . . . as in every way reputable and complete" (ii., p. 789).

We have space for but a few of Dr Moore's pleasant reminiscences. A woman came from South Wales whose only language was Welsh. Her husband's native language was Irish, and he had learned Welsh, but could speak no English. A scavenger came into the Casualty Department named Michael O'Clery. "An illustrious name," said the physician (N. M.?) remembering a certain famous chronicler. The scavenger explained accurately to which part of the family of hereditary historians he belonged.

"Another patient, a shoemaker . . . gave the name of Conellan. 'Have you ever heard,' said the physician, 'of Owen Conellan, who wrote a grammar?' 'My relation,' replied the patient, 'historiographer to His Majesty King George IV.' Thus was the physician instructed in the biography of the grammarian" (ii., p. 873).

A mountebank, who gained his living by thrusting a sword, about a foot long, down his gullet was admitted to a surgical ward. The treatment consisted in putting probangs of india-rubber down the gullet, and in this the patient was more adroit than the highly skilled surgeon who attended him (ii., p. 874).

I like, too, the case of a patient who was described as an "arrow-maker," and on being asked whether he did not call himself a fletcher, said, "Yes, but I thought you would not know." We read, also, of ruler-makers with "their hair turned green by the resin dust produced by their lathes." Also of "secret springers and piercers," who suggest murder and sudden death to the imperfectly informed.

The following incident (ii., p. 883) is interesting from the point of view of history:--A negro, Jonathan Strong, had been brutally beaten by his master, and was admitted to the hospital in 1765. On leaving he got work at a chemist's in the city; all seemed well, when he was recognised by an agent of his former master, and seized as "the property of Mr Kerr." Granville Sharp, who happened to be present, at once charged the agent with committing an assault. An action brought against Sharp lingered on for some time and was finally dropped. Strong remained free, but the general question of slavery in England was not settled till 1772. It is pleasant to know that in 1877 Dr Moore told the story of Jonathan Strong to William Lloyd Garrison.

SIR GEORGE AIRY {161}

In attempting to estimate this book, it is necessary to avoid first impressions, for what strikes one on opening its pages is its dullness. It is edited by his son, who, in a _Personal Sketch_, gives certain facts about his father without succeeding in being graphic or interesting in any way. There is too much detail of an unexciting quality, _e.g._, p. 272 (1867): "There was the usual visit to Playford in January. In April there was a short run to Alnwick and the neighbourhood in company with Mr and Mrs Routh. From 27th June to 4th July he was in Wales with his two eldest (_sic_) sons, visiting Uriconium, etc., on his return. From 8th August to 7th September he spent a holiday in Scotland and the Lake District of Cumberland with his daughter Christabel, visiting the Langtons at Barrow House, near Keswick, and Isaac Fletcher at Tarn Bank." When this kind of thing occurs often it is intolerably wearisome.

The same criticism applies to the extracts from Sir George Airy's diary, which his son publishes. For instance, p. 172 (1845): "On 29th January I went with my wife on a visit to my uncle, George Biddell, at Bradfield St George, near Bury. On 9th June I went into the mining district of Cornwall with George Arthur Biddell. From 25th August to 26th September I was travelling in France with my sister and my wife's sister, Georgiana Smith. I was well introduced and the journey was interesting. On 29th October my son Osmond was born. Mr F. Baily bequeathed to me 500 pounds, which realised 450 pounds."

This is a class of facts which a man may like to record, but their publication when so often repeated is surely unnecessary. There is, however, this to be said--that minute accuracy was a marked feature in Airy's character, and must therefore be made prominent; and it may be argued that the right degree of prominence can only be given by avoiding all suppression. I cannot think that this is so in the case of an editor. Nor can I believe that Airy would have approved of one detail in his son's method of printing the book, namely, that the diary is enclosed in inverted commas throughout, while the editor's occasional remarks are without them. It would surely have been simpler to say once for all that what is printed is an accurate copy of the diary, and to have given the editor's remarks within square brackets.

George Biddell Airy was born at Alnwick on 27th July 1801. He seems to have belonged to a Westmoreland family, but his forbears for several generations were small farmers in Lincolnshire. His father, William Airy, was clearly a person of energy and forethought, who laid by his summer's earnings "in order to educate himself in winter." He gave up farming as a young man and found employment in the excise, a profession not without danger in those early days when contraband trade was common. He is said to have had many fights with smugglers, but did not suffer the fate of the gauger in _Guy Mannering_, for Dirck Hatteraicks were not so common as youthful readers might desire.

In 1810 William Airy was transferred to Colchester, where, if there were fewer smugglers, there was more opportunity for education; and George was sent to a school in a street bearing the attractive name of Sir Isaac's Walk. Four years later Airy went to the Colchester Grammar School, where he remained until 1819, when he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. The only point of interest connected with his school life is the record (in his own words) of Airy's remarkable verbal memory. "It was the custom for each boy once a week to repeat a number of lines of Latin or Greek poetry, the number depending very much on his own choice. I determined on repeating 100 every week. . . . It was no distress to me, and great enjoyment. At Michaelmas 1816 I repeated 2394 lines, probably without missing a word."

On 18th October 1819 he went to Cambridge "on the top of the coach," and was installed in lodgings in Bridge Street. A reputation for mathematics had preceded him, and he was kindly received by Mr Peacock {164} and Professor Sedgwick. It will be remembered that some twenty years later both these personages interested themselves in another Cambridge undergraduate--Charles Darwin.

Airy (p. 23) showed Mr Peacock a manuscript book containing "a number of original Propositions" which he had investigated. This increased his reputation in the University, but he was destined to be eminent in quite another direction. On the recommendation of Clarkson--who, as the chief Abolitionist, ought to have been more revolutionary--he followed the rule almost universally neglected--that undergraduates should wear drab knee breeches. Though Airy must soon have discovered that the reign of breeches was over, he continued, like the careful youth he was, to wear them for three terms.

In the winter of his freshman's year, he did some original research in mathematics. This praiseworthy undertaking was characteristically treated by two of his advisers: Mr Peacock encouraged him to work out his problems; but his tutor (who bore the appropriate name of Hustler) disapproved of Airy's employing his time on such speculations.

He describes with characteristic precision his way of life as an undergraduate. He never failed to keep the four statutory morning chapels. Then came breakfast, and College lectures occupied him from nine till eleven. He then went back to his rooms, and instead of at once getting to his mathematics, he wrote a piece of Latin prose. At two o'clock he "went out for a long walk, usually 4 or 5 miles, into the country: sometimes if I found companions I rowed on the Cam (a practice acquired rather later)"; College Hall was at four, after which he "lounged" until it was time to go to evening chapel (five-thirty). About six he had tea, and then "read quietly, usually a classical subject, till eleven; and I never, even in the times when I might seem most severely pressed, sat up later."

In his second year he was asked to coach one Rosser, a man of his own year, for which he was paid at the rate of 14 pounds per term. "This occupied two hours every day, and I felt that I was now completely earning my own living. I never received a penny from my friends after this time."

His undergraduate life ended triumphantly in his being Senior Wrangler. He refers (p. 39) to the hardships of the examination: "The season was a cold one, and no fire was allowed in the Senate House, where the examination was carried on . . . and altogether it was a severe time." His reference to the ceremonial of degree-taking has a little self-glorification which is not characteristic of him:--"I, as Senior Wrangler, was led up first to receive the degree, and rarely has the Senate House rung with such applause as then filled it."

In January 1823 he came back to Cambridge and started business as a coach with four pupils, each of whom paid him twenty guineas a term. {166} By this time the great series of his published papers had begun--indeed No. 1, "On the use of Silvered Glass for the mirrors of Reflecting Telescopes," had already been published in 1822, by the Cambridge Philosophical Society.

It was in 1824 that "came one of the most important occurrences" of his life, namely, meeting the beautiful girl Richarda Smith, who was to become his wife. They were engaged in 1824 and married six years later. I venture the guess that her health was never very strong, for she seems not to have been much with Airy in his holiday wanderings. Wilfrid Airy speaks of "their deep respect and affection for one another."

On 1st October 1824, in his twenty-third year, he was elected to a Trinity fellowship. Macaulay, who was elected the same day, speaks somewhere of the especial value he placed on this most pleasant honour, but he was thinking of the life of a resident Fellow, and Airy at once told his tutor of his intention of going out into the world. He began, however, in the October term to give mathematical lectures in Trinity. The reader is not surprised to find that Airy now gave up the custom which he "had followed with such regularity for five years, namely, that of daily writing Latin." I wonder what other Senior Wrangler wrote Latin prose while reading for the Tripos?

We have seen that the great stream of his original work had been established. In 1822 he wrote one paper, in 1824 three, in 1825 two, in 1826 three, and in 1827 five; and this stream was to flow for sixty-five years, _i.e._, until 1887!

On December 1826 he was elected to the Lucasian professorship, and thus became a successor of Sir Isaac Newton. The salary when Airy was elected was but 99 pounds a year; the present holder is more adequately paid, and receives 850 pounds annually. His prospects in 1827 were, however, not very good. He had to resign his tutorship when he became a professor, and thus lost 51 pounds of income. As he would not take orders, his fellowship, according to the atrocious system of the day, would come to an end in seven years. But he surely judged wisely in accepting the poorly paid office. He had to lecture in a room, not intended for the purpose, in the old Botanic Gardens. This region is now occupied by science buildings, but bears a memory of its former history in the great _Sophora_ tree flourishing there.

He was soon to obtain better paid work, for in 1828 he was elected Plumian professor, and giving up his college rooms he moved into the Observatory, where his official career as an astronomer began. During the following years, up to 1834, he was busy with professorial work and his duties at the Cambridge Observatory. He began to receive public acknowledgments of his character and his work. In 1835 he was elected a correspondent of the French Academy. In the same year Sir Robert Peel (p. 106) offered him a pension of 300 pounds per annum, with no terms of any kind, and allowing it to be settled, "if I should think fit, on my wife."

On 11th June 1835 the First Lord of the Admiralty wrote offering Airy the office of Astronomer Royal, which was accepted. Another honour--that of Knighthood--he declined in the same year. In 1863 the same honour was again offered and declined with dignity, on the ground that fees of "about 30 pounds" were demanded. Finally, in 1872 he was offered the K.C.B. and knighted by the Queen at Osborne. In reply to the congratulations of a friend, Airy wrote: "The real charm of these public compliments seems to be, that they excite the sympathies and elicit the kind expressions of private friends or of official superiors as well as subordinates. In every way I have derived pleasure from these."

With regard to other honours, it is pleasant to discover that Airy, one of the most accurate of men, could make minute mistakes. Thus in 1863 he speaks (p. 254) of the academical degree of D.C.L. held by him in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. But at Cambridge the degree in question is known as LL.D.

It may be well to give here, irrespective of dates, some of the other honours received by Airy.

In 1867 he (in company with Connop Thirlwall) was elected to the newly instituted Honorary Fellowships of Trinity--a distinction which seems to have given him especial pleasure.

In 1872 he was chosen as "Foreign Associate of the Institut de France" (p. 297), and wrote a strongly worded letter of thanks to Elie de Beaumont and J. B. Dumas, the Perpetual Secretaries. In the same year he wrote (p. 299) to the Emperor of Brazil in acknowledgment of the Grand Cross of the Rose of Brazil.

In 1851 he was President of the British Association at Ipswich. He showed his sense of duty in a characteristic way (p. 207). "Prince Albert was present, as [a] guest of Sir William Middleton; I was engaged to meet him at dinner, but when I found that the dinner day was one of the principal soiree days, I broke off the engagement." In 1871 Airy was chosen President of the Royal Society. He wrote to a friend (p. 293): "The election . . . is flattering, and has brought to me the friendly remembrance of many persons; but in its material and laborious connections, I could well have dispensed with it, and should have done so but for the respectful way in which it was pressed on me." He resigned the Presidency in 1873 (p. 303), giving his reasons as follows:--"The severity of official duties, which seem to increase, while vigour to discharge them does not increase; and the distance of my residence. . . . Another reason is a difficulty of hearing, which unfits me for effective action as Chairman of the Council."

It is quite beyond my powers to estimate the value of Airy's work as Astronomer Royal; I therefore quote from Schuster and Shipley's _Britain's Heritage of Science_, p. 165:--"In astronomy he proved himself to be equally eminent as an administrator and investigator. He introduced revolutionary reforms in the practice of observatories by insisting on a rapid reduction and publication of all observations. After his appointment as Astronomer Royal, he set to work at once to reduce the series of observations of planets which had accumulated during eighty years without any use having been made of them. This was followed up by a similar reduction of 8000 lunar observations. He was equally energetic in adding to the instrumental equipment. When Greenwich was first founded, the longitude determination at sea depended to a great extent on measuring the distance between stars and the moon. Hence accurate tables of the position of the moon were essential, and the preparation of these tables has always been considered to be the chief care of Greenwich. The observations were made with a transit telescope which could only be used when the moon was passing the meridian, until Airy in 1843 persuaded the Board of Visitors to take steps for constructing a new instrument which would enable him to observe the moon in any position. In 1847 this instrument was at work, and other important additions to the equipment were made as occasion arose. . . .

"Among his theoretical investigations in pure astronomy, one of the most important resulted in the discovery of a new inequality in the motions of Venus and the earth due to their mutual attraction, and this led to an improvement in the solar tables."

Nor should it be forgotten that Airy "originated the automatic system by which the Greenwich time signals are transmitted each day throughout the country."

With regard to the celebrated case of the planet Neptune, "which Adams predicted would be found--as it was found by the Berlin observer Galle, to whom Leverrier indicated its position," Messrs Schuster and Shipley "cannot absolve either Airy or Challis [the Cambridge Astronomer] from blame."

Airy writes (p. 181): "The engrossing subject of this year [1846] was the discovery of Neptune. As I have said (1845), I obtained no answer from Adams to a letter of enquiry. Beginning with June 26th of 1846, I had correspondence of a satisfactory character with Leverrier, who had taken up the subject of the disturbance of Uranus, and arrived at conclusions not very different from those of Adams. I wrote from Ely on July 9th to Challis, begging him, as in possession of the largest telescope in England, to sweep for the planet and suggesting a plan. I received information of its recognition by Galle, when I was visiting Hansen at Gotha. For further official history, see my communications to the Royal Astronomical Society, and for private history see the papers in the Royal Observatory. I was abused most savagely both by English and French."

Having been Astronomer Royal from 1835, Airy, being eighty years of age, resigned his post in 1881, receiving (p. 340) a "retired allowance of 1100 pounds per annum."

His son writes (p. 346), "On the 16th of August 1881 Airy left the Observatory," which had been his home "for nearly 46 years, and removed to the White House. Whatever his feeling may have been at the severing of his old associations he carefully kept them to himself, and entered upon his new life with the cheerful composure and steadiness of temper which he possessed in a remarkable degree."

His son continues (p. 347): "The work to which he chiefly devoted himself in his retirement was the completion of his Numerical Lunar Theory. This was a vast work, involving the subtlest considerations of principle, very long and elaborate mathematical investigations of a high order, and an enormous amount of arithmetical computation." Of this work Airy wrote, p. 349 (apparently in 1886): "The critical trial depends on the great mass of computations in Section ii. These have been made in duplicate, with all the care for accuracy that anxiety could supply. Still I cannot but fear that the error which is the source of discordance must be on my part." The work was continued until October 1888, but without success.

He continued to show his characteristic fearlessness in what he considers to be his duty. Thus in 1883 (p. 355) he refused to sign a memorial in favour of the burial of Mr Spottiswoode in Westminster Abbey, on the ground that he had not conferred "great and durable" benefits on society. In 1883 he wrote (p. 356) to the Vicar of Greenwich protesting against choral service in the church. I shall quote his words as almost a solitary example of his use of picturesque English:--"For a venerable persuasion there is substituted a rude irreverential confusion of voices; for an earnest acceptance of the form offered by the Priest there is substituted--in my feeling at least--a weary waiting for the end of an unmeaning form."

In 1887 his son records (p. 361) that Airy's private accounts gave him much trouble. It had been his custom to keep them by double entry in very perfect order. "But he now began to make mistakes and to grow confused, and this distressed him greatly . . . and so he struggled with his accounts as he did with his Lunar Theory till his powers absolutely failed."

In 1889 he had the satisfaction of knowing that his system of compass correction in iron ships had been universally adopted. Whether the Admiralty ought to be proud of the fact that fifty years had elapsed since Airy's discovery was made known is another question.

Sir George Airy died 2nd January 1892. It is recorded that before the end came he had been lying quietly for several days "reciting the English poetry with which his memory was stored."

SYDNEY SMITH {175a}

"I thank God, Who has made me poor, that He has made me merry."