attached? I never met with
a single copy of that work so completed, not even the one in our own
library. It is extremely desirable that the Society should know the
names of their Council; and whilst it would in some measure contribute
to prevent the President from placing incompetent persons upon it, it
would also afford some check, although perhaps but a slight one, on
the distribution of the medals. When I have urged the expediency of the
practice, I have been answered by excuses, that the list could not be
made up in time for the volume. If this is true of the first part, they
might appear with the second; and even if this were impracticable, the
plan of prefixing them to the volume of the succeeding year, would
be preferable to that of omitting them altogether. The true reason,
however, appeared at last. It was objected to the plan, that by the
present arrangement, the porter of the Royal Society took round the
list to those members resident in London, and got from some of them a
remuneration, in the shape of a Christmas-box; and this would be lost,
if the time of printing were changed. [During the printing of this
chapter, a friend, on whom I had called, complained that the porter of
the Royal Society had demanded half-a-crown for leaving the list.] Such
are the paltry interests to which those of the Royal Society are made to
bow.

Another point on which information ought to be given in each volume,
is the conditions on which the distribution of the Society's medals
are made. It is true that these are, or ought to be, printed with
the Statutes of the Society; but that volume is only in the hands of
members, and it is for the credit of the medals themselves, that the
laws which regulate their award should be widely known, in order that
persons, not members of the Society, might enter into competition for
them.

Information relative to the admissions and deaths amongst the Society
would also be interesting; a list of the names of those whom the Society
had lost, and of those members who had been added to its ranks each
year, would find a proper place in the historical pages which ought to
be given with each volume of our Transactions.

The want of a distinction between the working members of the Society,
and those who merely honour it with their patronage, renders many
arrangements, which would be advantageous to science, in some cases,
injudicious, and in other instances, almost impossible.

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