Page:A budget of paradoxes (IA cu31924103990507).pdf/247

Rh In 1798, experimental lectures were given, a small charge for admission being taken at the door: by this hangs a tale—and a song. Many years ago, I found among papers of a deceased friend, who certainly never had anything to do with the Society, and who passed all his life far from London, a song, headed 'Song sung at a Mathematical Society in London, at a dinner given to Mr. Fletcher, a solicitor, who had defended the Society gratis.' Mr. Williams, the Assistant Secretary of the Astronomical Society, formerly Secretary of the Mathematical Society, remembered that the Society had had a solicitor named Fletcher among the members. Some years elapsed before it struck me that my old friend Benjamin Grompertz, who had long been a member, might have some recollection of the matter. The following is an extract of a letter from him (July 9, 1861):—