LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE Plate 1. Portraits of Lord Brouncker, P.R.S., Sir Joseph Williamson, to face p. 10 Plate 2. Portraits of Samuel Pepys, P.R.S., the Earl of Carbery, P.R.S., to face p. 18 14 99 122 124 127 130 132 133 138 140 145 172 RECORD OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FOUNDATION AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. The "first ground and foundation of the Royal Society" is given by Wallis* as follows: "About the year 1645, while I lived in London (at a time when, by our civil wars, academical studies were much interrupted in both our Universities), beside the conversation of divers eminent divines, as to matters theological, I had the opportunity of being acquainted with divers worthy persons, inquisitive into natural philosophy, and other parts of human learning; and particularly of what hath been called. the New Philosophy or Experimental Philosophy. We did by agreements, divers of us, meet weekly in London on a certain day [and hour, under a certain penalty, and a weekly contribution for the charge of experiments, with certain rules agreed upon amongst us],† to treat and discourse of such affairs; of which number were Dr. John Wilkins (afterwards Bishop of Chester [then chaplain to the Prince Elector Palatine, in London]), Dr. Jonathan Goddard, Dr. George Ent, Dr. Glisson, Dr. Merret (Drs. in Physick), Mr. Samuel Foster, then Professor of Astronomy at Gresham College, Mr. Theodore Haak‡ (a German of the Palatinate, and then resident in London, who, I think, gave the first occasion, and first suggested those meetings), and many others. "These meetings we held sometimes at Dr. Goddard's lodgings in Wood Street (or some convenient place near), on occasion of his keep * Dr. John Wallis, mathematician, b. 1616, d. 1703. The passage quoted is from his letter to Dr. Thomas Smith, dated January 29, 1696-7, published in Thomas Hearne's Appendix to his preface to 'Peter Langtoft's Chronicle,' vol. 1, p. 161, edit. London, 1725. The passages in square brackets are taken from Wallis's A Defence of the Royal Society,' 1678. Misprinted Hank. B ing an operator in his house for grinding glasses for telescopes and microscopes; sometimes at a convenient place [The Bull Head] in Cheapside, and [in term-time] at Gresham College [at Mr. Foster's lecture (then Astronomer Professor there), and, after the lecture ended, repaired, sometimes to Mr. Foster's lodgings, sometimes to some other place not far distant]. "Our business was (precluding matters of theology and state affairs) to discourse and consider of Philosophical Enquiries, and such as related thereunto: as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, Mechanicks, and natural Experiments; with the state of these studies, as then cultivated at home and abroad. We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves in the veins, the venæ lacter, the lymphatick vessels, the Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape (as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots in the sun, and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and selenography of the Moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, the improvement of telescopes, and grinding of glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities and Nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies, and the degrees of acceleration therein; and divers other things of like nature. Some of which were then but new discoveries, and others not so generally known and embraced as now they are, with other things appertaining to what hath been called The New Philosophy, which from the times of Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad, as well as with us in England. "About the year 1648, 1649, some of our company being removed to Oxford (first Dr. Wilkins, then I, and soon after Dr. Goddard) our company divided. Those in London continued to meet there as before (and we with them, when we had occasion to be there), and those of us at Oxford, with Dr. Ward (since Bishop of Salisbury), Dr. Ralph Bathurst (now President of Trinity College in Oxford), Dr. Petty (since Sir William Petty), Dr. Willis (then an eminent physician in Oxford), and divers others, continued such meetings in Oxford, and brought these studies into fashion there; meeting first at Dr. Petty's lodgings (in an apothecarie's house), because of the convenience of inspecting drugs, and the like, as there was occasion; and after his remove to Ireland (though not so constantly) at the lodgings of Dr. Wilkins, then Warden of Wadham College, and after his removal to Trinity College in Cambridge, at the lodgings of the Honourable Mr. Robert Boyle, then resident for divers years in Oxford." It is to this private Society, meeting partly in London, partly at Oxford, that Boyle most probably refers when, in his letters to Mons. Marcombes (October 22, 1646), to Francis Tallents (February 20, |