Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/284

Rh He became President of this Society in 1828, on the resigna- tion of Sir Humphry Davy ; a situation from which he retired in 1831. He continued, however, for the remainder of his life, to take a prominent part in the concerns of the Society ; and there are few of my brother-Fellows, whom I have now the honour of addressing, who have not had opportunities of observing and appreciating his constant zeal for the interests of science, the variety and philoso- phical character of his conversation, the simple and unaffected elo- quence of his public addresses, and, above all, that sweetness of temper and kindness of heart which beamed forth in the expression of those truly classical and benevolent features, which one of the most accomplished of our artists (himself a brother-Fellow) has so happily perpetuated in the portrait which adorns these walls. The very absence of that inflexibility of purpose and of opinion which sonie might consider essential to the perfection of the character of a philosopher, seemed, in his case, the proper developement of that natural benevolence and humanity which made him so justly beloved in every relation of life, whether as a husband, a father, and a brother, — as a master, a landlord, and a friend.

Mr. Gilbert was the author and editor of several antiquarian and other works relating to his native county, whose interests he always laboured to promote with more than common zeal and patriotism. He was President of the Cornish Geological Society from the period of its first establishment in 1814>, and he never omitted attending its meetings, though on the last occasion he was so weak as to be compelled to resign the chair to his friend and countryman Sir Charles Lemon. In 1808, he married Miss Gilbert, and assumed her name in 1817, on succeeding to a verj large property in Sussex. The same simple and unaffected character which distin- guished him in public life was still more conspicuous in his domestic relations. He died on the 24th of December last, and his body was borne to the grave by his own labourers, and followed by his widow and family in that primitive and unostentatious form which best suited the simplicity and natural humility of his own character.

Dr. Samuel Butler, Bishop of Lichfield, was born in 1774, at Kenilworth,which was likewise the birth-place of two other contemporary prelates of our church. He was educated at Rugby, and became afterwards a member of St. John's College, Cambridge, where he gained the highest classical honours which the University could confer. In 1798 he was made Head Master of Shrewsbury School, over which he continued to preside during a period of thirty-eight years. His great acquirements as a scholar, his eminent skill as a teacher, his active interest in the welfare of his pupils, and the tact and knowledge of character which he showed in their management, all contributed to raise the school to the highest reputation, and to give it, during many years, the pre-eminence over every other school in the kingdom in the number and rank of the academical honours which were gained by his scholars. The date of his elevation to the Bench was nearly contemporaneous with the appearance of that fatal disease which, after three years of the most depressing suffer-