le to be regretted,
that it should have been so restricted; and perhaps its founder, had he
foreseen the routine into which it has dwindled, might have endeavoured
to preserve it, by affording it a wider range.

By giving it to a variety of individuals, competition might have been
created, and many young anatomists have been induced to direct their
attention to the favourite inquiry of the founder of the Lecture;
but from causes which need not here be traced, this has not been the
custom--one individual has monopolized it year after year, and it seems,
like the Fairchild Lecture, rather to have been regarded as a pension.
There have, however, been some intervals; and we are still under
obligations to those who have supported THE SYSTEM, for not appointing
Sir Everard Home to read the Croonian Lecture twenty years in
SUCCESSION. Had it been otherwise, we might have heard of vested rights.

SECTION 11. OF THE CAUSES OF THE PRESENT STATE OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

The best friends of the Royal Society have long admitted, whilst they
regretted, its declining fame; and even those who support whatever
exists, begin a little to doubt whether it might not possibly be
amended.

The great and leading cause of the present state to which the Royal
Society is reduced, may be traced to years of misrule to which it has
been submitted. In order to understand this, it will be necessary
to explain the nature of that misrule, and the means employed in
perpetuating it.

It is known, that by the statutes, the body of the Society have the
power of electing, annually, their President, Officers, and Council;
and it is also well known, that this is a merely nominal power, and
that printed lists are prepared and put into the hands of the members
on their entering the room, and thus passed into the balloting box. If
these lists were, as in other scientific societies, openly discussed in
the Council, and then offered by them as recommendations to the Society,
little inconvenience would arise; but the fact is, that they are private
nominations by the President, usually without notice, to the Council,
and all the supporters of the system which I am criticizing, endeavour
to uphold the right of this nomination in the President, and prevent or
discourage any alteration.

The Society has, for years, been managed by a PARTY, or COTERIE, or
by whatever other name may be most fit to designate a combination of
persons, united by no expressed compa