success had been involved in the result. But such anxieties were transitory, and, on the whole, interfered very little with the comfort of my life.

About this time I became a member of a society which was formed under the name of The Animal Chemistry Club,' or 'A Society for the Promotion of Animal Chemistry.' We met at dinner alternately at the houses of Mr. Home and Mr. Hatchett, once in three months, our party consisting of Mr. Home, Mr. Hatchett, Mr. (afterwards Sir Humphry) Davy, Dr. Babington, Mr. William Brande, Mr. Clift, Mr. Children, Dr. Warren, and myself. They were very rational meetings, in which a .good deal of scientific discussion was mixed up with lively and agreeable conversation. The society continued to exist for ten or eleven years, but during the latter part of the time, some other members were added to it, and it degenerated into a mere dinner club. Mr. W. Brande and myself are at present the only surviving members. We were, as young men, living on terms of great intimacy, and our friendship

has continued unimpaired down to the present time.

Mr. W. Brande was the younger son of Mr. Brande, who had accompanied Queen Charlotte from Germany to England, and was apothecary to the King and Queen and the Royal Household while in London. He had, as a boy, attracted the notice of Mr. Hatchett, and from him had acquired a taste for chemical pursuits. He delivered lectures on chemistry, in connexion with Mr. Wilson's Anatomical School in Great Windmill Street; and was, even at this early period, an excellent lecturer, distinguished for the clearness and method of his discourses, and for the admirable manner in which he performed the experimental part of his instruction. When Sir Humphry Davy, after his marriage with Mrs. A preece, resigned the Professorship of Chemistry at the Royal Institution, Brande was appointed as his successor, and he continued to hold this office between thirty and forty years. He also succeeded Davy as one of the secretaries of the Royal Society, which office he held for many years, being succeeded by Mr.

Children. In the early part of his career he entered on some original investigations in chemistry, and pursued them with much success. His friends have much regretted that he did not continue to distinguish himself in this manner afterwards. It is, however, easy to be explained. He married Mr. Hatchett's youngest daughter. He had a large family, and had abundance of occupation in his endeavours to obtain the income which, in his condition of life, was necessary to maintain them. He held an office, which he holds still, in the Royal Mint.. He held another office as director of the laboratory belonging to the Society of Apothecaries. He delivered an annual course of lectures, as Professor of the Royal Institution, and he also delivered a lecture three mornings in the week, during the winter, in the laboratory of the Institution; forming an extended course of chemistry, which was attended by the medical students of St. George's Hospital, and by many others, and which made a constant exertion necessary to keep him on a level with the increasing knowledge of the day. In fact, his life was one of

incessant labour, and he had no leisure for other pursuits. If Davy or Faraday had had large families to provide for, they would not have had sufficient leisure, nor sufficient freedom from anxiety, to distinguish themselves as they have done in the line of original research.

The meetings of the Animal Chemistry Club, while it was limited to its original members, were to me very interesting and instructive. Hatchett, who had now inherited a considerable fortune on the death of his father, had ceased to work in chemistry (in spite of the remonstrance of Sir Joseph Banks, who used to say to him in his rough way that 'he would find being a gentleman of fortune was a confounded bad trade'), but he had previously laid up a large store of knowledge, abounded in the materials of conversation, and was a delightful companion. Davy, who in general society was generally over-anxious to display himself to advantage and thought too much of what others would think of him, with us retained his original simplicity, and was quite at his ease. Whatever was the subject of conversation, he

had something to offer and something to suggest, which showed in how remarkable a degree he combined within himself a highly poetical imagination with a strict, cautious, and accurate judgment. Babington, the intimate friend of Davy, to whom he dedicated his 'Salmonia,' with a good deal of scientific knowledge, was full of the most kind and generous feelings, and his conversation was enlivened by appropriate anecdotes, with a fund, I will not say of wit, but of infinite humour. Home, besides his acquirements as a naturalist and comparative anatomist, possessed a knowledge of the world and of human nature which, displaying itself every now and then, and without premeditation, afforded much useful information to younger men; otherwise he was no great master of the art of conversation, or at least not at all to be compared in this respect to either Hatchett or Davy.

I may take this opportunity of mentioning another society to which I at this time belonged. It was founded in the year 1793, by John Hunter and Dr. Fordyce, under the name of