When that right was given to him,--let us suppose somebody had suggested the impolicy of it, lest he should sell the costly volumes for waste paper,--who would have listened for one moment to such a supposition?
He would have been told that it was impossible to suppose a person in that high and responsible situation, could be so indifferent to his own reputation.
A short time since, I applied to the President and Council of the Royal Society, for copies of the Greenwich Observations, which were necessary for an inquiry on which I was at that time engaged.

Being naturally anxious to economize the small funds I can devote to science, the request appeared to me a reasonable one.

It was, however, refused; and I was at the same time informed that the Observations could be purchased at the bookseller's.

[This was a mistake; Mr.Murray has not copies of the Greenwich Observations prior to 1823.] When I consider that practical astronomy has not occupied a very prominent place in my pursuits, I feel disposed, on that ground, to acquiesce in the propriety of the refusal.

This excuse can, however, be of no avail for similar refusals to other gentlemen, who applied nearly at the same time with myself, and whose time had been successfully devoted to the cultivation of that science.