resident in London, who took an interest in what was called the new or experimental philosophy, began to meet together once a week, sometimes at the lodgings of one of their number, Dr. Jonathan Goddard, a physician, in Wood Street, who kept an operator in his house for grinding glasses for telescopes; sometimes at apartments in Cheapside, sometimes in Gresham College or its neighborhood. Such is the account given by Dr. Birch, on the authority of Dr. John Wallis, the eminent mathematician, who was himself a member of the association thus formed.1 Besides Wallis, Haak, and Goddard, it included Dr. Wilkins (afterwards Bishop of Chester, and the author of several curious scientific projects and speculations), Dr. George Ent (the friend of Harvey, and defender of his great discovery), Dr. Glisson, already mentioned, Dr. Christopher Merret, who afterwards distinguished himself by his experimental investigations, Mr. Samuel Foster, professor of astronomy in Gresham College, and several others whose names have not been recorded. "Their business was," says Birch, "precluding affairs of state and questions of theology, to consider and discuss philosophical subjects, and whatever had any connection with or relation to them, - as physic, anatomy, geometry, astronomy, navigation, statics, magnetism, chemistry, mechanics, and natural experiments, with the state of these studies as then cultivated at home or abroad."

In some letters written in 1646 and 1647 we find the Honorable Robert Boyle, then a very young man, making mention of what he calls "our new Philosophical or Invisible College," by which he is supposed to mean this association. Wilkins, Wallis, and Goddard were all withdrawn to Oxford, by being appointed to offices in the university in the course of the years 1648, 1649, and 1651; and by their exertions a society similar to the London one was now established in that city, which was joined by Dr. Seth Ward, then Savilian professor of astronomy, afterwards successively Bishop of Exeter and Salisbury, by Dr. Ralph Bathurst, Dr. Thomas Willis, Dr. (afterwards Sir) William Petty (all physicians), and divers others. The Oxford society met at first in Dr. Petty's lodgings, in the house of an apothecary, whose boxes and phials furnished them with many of the chemical substances they

1 History of the Royal Society of London, 1756, i. 1. Dr. Birch refers to Dr Wallis's account of his own Life in the Preface to Hearne's edition of Langtoft's Chronicle, i. 161. What is here called an account of his life is a letter from Wallis to his friend Dr. Thomas Smith.

wanted for inspection or experiment. After Petty went to Ireland in September, 1652, the meetings seem to have been discontinued for some years; but in February, 1658, we find Petty, in a letter from Dublin to Boyle, observing that he had not heard better news than that the club was restored at Oxford; and shortly before that date the members appear to have, in fact, begun to assemble again at Dr. Wilkins's apartments in Wadham College, whence, on the appointment of Wilkins, in September, 1659, to the mastership of Trinity College, Cambridge, they transferred themselves to the lodgings of Mr. Boyle, who had come to Oxford in June, 1654, and continued to reside there till April, 1668.

All this while the original London society is believed to have met once or twice a week for the greater part of the year without interruption, those of the members who had removed to Oxford rejoining it whenever they chanced to come up to town. In course of time many of the members of the Oxford club became resident in London; and it is certain that, by the year 1659, the meetings had come to be held pretty regularly in term-time at Gresham College every week, either after the Wednesday's lecture on astronomy by Wren, or after the Thursday's on geometry by Mr. Lawrence Rooke, sometimes, perhaps, on both days. Among the members at this time are mentioned Lord Brouncker and John Evelyn. The confusion in which public affairs were involved in the latter part of the year 1659, when Gresham College was turned into a barrack for soldiers, dispersed the philosophers; but "their meetings," continues their historian, "were revived, and attended with a larger concourse of persons, eminent for their characters and learning, upon the Restoration, 1660; and, as appears from the journal-book of the Royal Society, on the 28th of November that year, the Lord Viscount Brouncker, Mr. Boyle, Mr. Bruce, Sir Robert Moray, Sir Paul Neile, Dr. Wilkins, Dr. Goddard, Dr. Petty, Mr. Balle, Mr. Rooke, Mr. Wren, and Mr. Hill, after the lecture of Mr. Wren at Gresham College, withdrew for mutual conversation into Mr. Rooke's apartment, where, amongst other matters discoursed of, something was offered about a design of founding a college for the promoting of physico-mathematical experimental learning. And, because they had these frequent occasions of meeting with one another, it was proposed that some course might be thought of to improve this meeting to a more regular way of debating things; and that, according to the manner in other

countries, where there were voluntary associations of men into academies for the advancement of various parts of learning, they might do something answerable here for the promoting of experimental philosophy." It was thereupon agreed that the meetings should be continued at three o'clock in the afternoon on every Wednesday, in Mr. Rooke's chamber at Gresham College during term-time, and at Mr. Balle's apartments in the Temple in the vacation. It was also arranged that every member of the society should pay ten shillings on his admission, and a shilling a week besides so long as he remained a member. At this meeting, which may be regarded as that at which the present Royal Society was actually founded, Dr. Wilkins presided. From the subsequent admissions it appears that only the twelve persons present on this occasion were considered as members; all others, even those who had attended the meetings kept before the Restoration, had to be regularly proposed and balloted for. A list, however, was now drawn out of “such persons as were known to those present, and judged by them willing and fit to be joined with them in their design, and who, if they should desire it, might be admitted before any others"; among whom we find the names of Lord Hatton, Mr. (afterwards Lord) Brereton, who had been a member of the old club, Sir Kenelm Digby, Mr. Evelyn, Mr. Slingsbey (another attendant at the meetings before the Restoration), Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Denham, Dr. Ward, Dr. Wallis, Dr. Glisson, Dr. Ent, Dr. Bate (author of the Elenchus Mortuum), Dr. Willis, Dr. Cowley (the poet), Mr. Ashmole (founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford), Mr. Oldenburg (for many years secretary), &c. At the next meeting, on that day week, Sir Robert Moray informed the members, from the king, that his majesty had been made acquainted with their design, and that he highly approved of it, and would be ready to give it his encouragement. It appears to have been principally through Moray, who held the office of a sort of private secretary to Charles II., that the Society acquired and was enabled to keep up its interest at court. Burnet, who knew him well, calls him "the first former of the Royal Society," and adds that "while he lived he was the life and soul of that body." "He was," says the bishop, "the most universally beloved and esteemed by men of all sides and sorts of any man I have ever known in my whole life. He was a pious man, and in

1 Birch, i. 3.

the midst of armies and courts he spent many hours a day in devotion, which was in a most elevating strain. He had gone through the easy parts of mathematics, and knew the history of nature beyond any man I ever yet knew. He had a genius much like Peiriski, as he is described by Gassendi."1 On the 16th of Jan

uary, 1661, we find the king sending the Society two loadstones by Sir Robert Moray, with a message, "that he expected an account from the Society of some of the most considerable experiments upon them."2 Charles seems to have taken much interest in the Society from the first; in the account of the meeting of the 4th of September this year, it is noted that "a proposition of Mr. Hobbes, for finding two mean proportionals between two straight lines given, was delivered into the Society by Sir Paul Neile from the king, indorsed with his majesty's own hand, and was ordered to be registered"; and on the 16th of October Sir Robert Moray acquaints the Society that he and Sir Paul Neile had kissed the king's hand in their name; on which he was desired to return their most humble thanks to his majesty "for the favour and honour done them, of offering himself to be entered one of their Society."4"When the Society first addressed themselves to his majesty," Bishop Sprat tells us, "he was pleased to express much satisfaction that this enterprise was begun in his reign. He then represented to them the gravity and difficulty of their work; and assured them of all the kind influence of his power and prerogative. Since that he has frequently committed many things to their search; he has referred many foreign rarities to their inspection; he has recommended many domestic improvements to their care; he has demanded the result of their trials in many appearances of nature; he has been present, and assisted with his own hands, at the performing of many of their experiments, in his gardens, his parks, and on the river." 5

On the 15th of July, 1662, a charter was passed incorporating the Society under the name of the Royal Society, and constituting William Lord Brouncker the first president; Moray, Boyle, Brereton, Digby, Neile, Slingsbey, Petty, Drs. Wallis, Timothy Clarke, Wilkins, and Ent, William Areskine, Esq., cup-bearers to his majesty; Drs. Goddard and Christopher Wren, William Balle, Esq., Matthew Wren, Esq., Evelyn, T. Henshaw, Esq., Dudley Palmer, 1 Own Time, i. 59. 3 Ibid. p. 42. 4 Ibid. p. 50. 5 History of the Royal Society, Lond. 1667, p. 133.

2 Birch, i. 10.

Esq., and Oldenburg, the first council; Balle, the first treasurer; and Wilkins and Oldenburg the first secretaries. And some additional privileges were granted by a second charter which passed the privy seal on the 22d of April, 1663.1 From a list drawn up on the 21st of May, in that year, it appears that the number of members was then a hundred and fifteen.2 Among them, besides the names that have been already mentioned, are those of James Lord Annesley, John Aubrey, Esq. (the author of the Miscellanies), George Duke of Buckingham, George Lord Berkeley, Robert Lord Bruce, Isaac Barrow, B. D., Walter Lord Cavendish, Dr. Walter Charleton, John Earl of Crawford and Lindsay, Henry Marquis of Dorchester, William Earl of Devonshire, John Dryden, Esq. (the poet), John Graunt, Esq. (author of the Observations upon the Bills of Mortality), Mr. Robert Hooke (already a very active member, although the only one whose name stands thus undecorated by any designation either civil or academic), Alexander Earl of Kincardine, John Lord Lucas, John Viscount Massareene, James Earl of Northampton, Dr. Walter Pope (author of the well-known song called the Old Man's Wish, and other pieces of verse), Edward Earl of Sandwich, Thomas Sprat, M. A. (afterwards Bishop of Rochester), Edmund Waller, Esq. (the poet). The Royal Society, we thus perceive, besides the array of titled names which it doubtless owed in part to the patronage of the court, had at this time to boast of a considerable sprinkling of the cultivators of poetry and general literature among its men of science and experimentalists. It had however been specially constituted for the promotion of natural or physical science: Regalis Societas Londini pro scientia naturali promovenda, or the Royal Society of London for improving natural knowledge, is the full title by which it is described in the second royal charter, and in the English oath therein directed to be taken by the president.*

1 See the first Charter in Birch, i. 88-96; the second, 221-230.

2 Birch, i. 239.

8 On the 7th of December, 1664, "it being suggested that there were several persons of the Society whose genius was very proper and inclined to improve the English tongue, and particularly for philosophical purposes, it was voted that there be a committee for improving the English language, and that they meet at Sir Peter Wyche's lodgings in Gray's Inn once or twice a month, and give an account of their proceedings to the Society when called upon." A committee of twentyone members was accordingly appointed for this purpose: among them were Dryden, Evelyn, Sprat, and Waller. - Birch, i. 499, 500.

4 In the first Charter it is called simply the Royal Society (Regalis Societas),