Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/225

 ii s. vi. SEPT. 7, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

181

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1912.

CONTENTS. No. 141.

NOTES : The Royal Society's 250th Anniversary, 181 Cobbett Bibliography, 183 Borodino, 185 Broadbent Place- Name The Marriage of Queen Caroline Matilda of Denmark, 188 Primero Sir John Prisot, Chief Justice The London Bricklayer, 187.

QUERIES: "Ad subsidiura Terre Sancte " Stained Glass from Malvern German Proverb Sir Thomas Browne: Gillies's 'Ancient Greece' Bedford Bounds, Bloomsbury, 188 References in ' Marius the Epicurean ' References Wanted Hogarth's 'Rake's Progress' Picture of Cleopatra Great Fire in Wanting, 1682 Compton Abdale Church Dick Turpin's Ride to York, 189 Napoleon in London Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia A venam Charles Keene : Article by George Moore Sacred Wells Counts of Meiilan-Corio, Victoria, Aus- tralia, 190 Lifting the Bride over the Threshold Plants in Poetry " Yelver " in Place-Names ' Husenbeth's Breviary ' Sir Walter Ralegh's Descendants, 191.

REPLIES : Lowndes's ' Bibliographer's Manual," 191 Dedication of Nonconformist Chapels, 192 Apparent Death, 193 Place of Deposit of Wills -Knights of Malta : Grand Master Vilhena, 194" Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde '" Pointers "Author Wanted Dogs on Tombs, 195 Throwing Balls in Church on Easter Mon- dayCardinal Alphonse de Richelieu, 196 Barnard Family Nevills of Raby : their Ancestor Moses Charas Municipal Records Printed Ludovick Robsert, Lord Bourchier Quarles Family, 197 Thunder Cross and Medal "Dr. Syntax "Richard Newcome, Vicar of Hursley- First Use of Finger- Prints for Identification, 198.

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' Analecta Bollandiana ' ' Etymo- logical Dictionary of English Surnames' Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

JI0tlS.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY'S 250TH ANNIVERSARY.

THIS anniversary should not pass without a record in ' N. & Q.'

The celebration opened on the 15th of July with a reception of delegates at Burlington House, and on the following day a commemorative service was held in the Abbey. The Guildhall was lent by the Corporation for a banquet ; there was a reception by the King and Queen at Windsor on the 1 8th ; and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge entertained the delegates on the 19th, the company invited being divided into two sections : one was received at Oxford, and the other at Cam- bridge. As a permanent memorial of the celebration the Royal Society has had printed, at the Oxford University Press, collotype facsimiles of all the signatures of the founders, patrons, and fellows of the Society recorded in its first Journal Book

and the Charter Book from 1660 to the present time. The volume of signatures (which measures 18 in. by 14 in.) contains a photogravure portrait of Charles II., who gave the Society its charters, and a Preface by Sir A. Geikie. Mr. Henry Frowde also published on the day of the commemorative service at the Abbey a third edition, entirely revised and rearranged, of ' The Record of the Royal Society,' originally edited by Prof. Michael Foster and Prof. A. W. Riicker. The Illustrated London Neivs of July 28th gave a large portrait of Sir Archi- bald Geikie, who has been President since 1908 ; and The Sphere of the same date gave portraits of twenty-six distinguished Fellows. These do indeed, as the editor states, " form an interesting phrenological study as a varied group of scientific heads of the present epoch."

To the ' Record ' the President has contributed a narrative of the ' Foundation and Early History of the Society.' This history is full of varied incidents. Evelyn, it may be remembered, in a letter to Dr. Wotton on the 30th of March. 1696, supplies him with information about " our illustrious philosopher Mr. Boyle," whose life Wotton contemplated writing; refers to the " learned junto " formed at Oxford, Boyle, Lord Brouncker, and Sir Robert Murray being the most active members ; and says that " the Royal Society must ever own its rise from that assembly."

The entry of Monk with his army into London in February, 1660, and the return of Charles II. in May, caused life in the capital to move mainly on the old lines. The meetings of the philosophers at Gresham College were revived. The desirability of more formal organization among the culti- vators of science was recognized, and accordingly on the 28th of November the philosophers met and proposed a list of names of persons who would be likely to join in forming a society. On the 5th of December it was " resolved to form a Society for promoting experimental philo- sophy ; ' ; and to this 115 signatures were appended. Sir A. Geikie says :

" They comprise not merely the names of the original actual investigators to whose energy and enthusiasm the movement was mainly due, but a large company of men of all ranks who were prominent in the social life of the day. The men of science were greatly outnumbered by the outsiders whom they had induced to join them."

" Perhaps," adds Sir A. Geikie, " the most notable feature of the company is the number of literary men who subscribed the resolution. They included the poets John Dryden (who signs