ring which his Majesty earnestly entreated him to use his
influence in supporting Mr. Wilson. The reply of the president was
highly honourable to himself and the society whom he represented. It was
to the effect that duty as well as inclination would always induce him
to execute his Majesty's wishes to the utmost of his power; "But, sire,"
said he, "I cannot reverse the laws and operations of Nature." It is
stated that when Sir John regretted his inability to alter the laws of
Nature, the king replied, "Perhaps, Sir John, you had better resign." It
was shortly after this occurrence that a friend of Dr. Franklin's wrote
this epigram:--

"While you, great George, for knowledge hunt,
And sharp conductors change for blunt,
The nation's out of joint;
Franklin a wiser course pursues,
And all your thunder useless views,
By keeping to the point."

A strange scene in the Royal Society in 1710 (Queen Anne) deserves
record. It ended in the expulsion from the council of that irascible Dr.
Woodward who once fought a duel with Dr. Mead inside the gate of Gresham
College. "The sense," says Mr. Ward, in his "Memoirs," "entertained by
the society of Sir Hans Sloane's services and virtues was evinced by the
manner in which they resented an insult offered him by Dr. Woodward,
who, as the reader is aware, was expelled the council. Sir Hans was
reading a paper of his own composition, when Woodward made some grossly
insulting remarks. Dr. Sloane complained, and moreover stated that Dr.
Woodward had often affronted him by making grimaces at him; upon which
Dr. Arbuthnot rose and begged to be 'informed what distortion of a man's
face constituted a grimace.' Sir Isaac Newton was in the chair when the
question of expulsion was agitated, and when it was pleaded in
Woodward's favour that 'he was a good natural philosopher,' Sir Isaac
remarked that in order to belong to that society a man ought to be a
good moral philosopher as well as a natural one."

The Scottish Society held its meetings in Crane Court. "Elizabeth," says
Mr. Timbs, "kept down the number of Scotsmen in London to the
astonishingly small one of fifty-eight; but with James I. came such a
host of traders and craftsmen, many of whom failing to obtain
employment, gave rise, as early as 1613, to the institution of the
'Scottish Box,' a sort of friendly society's treasury, when there were
no banks to take charge of money. In 1638 the company, then only