MEMOIRS

OF THE

DISTINGUISHED MEN OF SCIENCE

OF GREAT BRITAIN

LIVING IN THE YEARS 1807-8.

AND APPENDIX.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

ROBERT HUNT, F.R.S., &c.

COMPILED AND ARRANGED BY

WILLIAM WALKER, JUNIOR.

Second Edition.

"The evil, that men do, lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones."

SHAKSPEARE.

LONDON:

E. & F. N. SPON, 16, BUCKLERSBURY.

1864.

200. 6. 17.
210. C C. 389.

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

THE following brief memoirs were originally compiled for the purpose of accompanying the Engraving of "The Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain living in 1807-8, assembled at the Royal Institution." As, however, "The Memoirs" were found to have a considerable sale, independent of the Engraving, it has been found necessary to produce a second edition. All the lives have been carefully revised, and considerable additions made, while, in order to render the present book a more complete compendium of the great men of that period, an Appendix has been added, containing the Memoirs of Black, Cort, Ivory, and Priestly, who unfortunately were, from different reasons, unable to be included in the group in the Engraving.

With the exception of the notices of Trevithick, Tennant, Maudslay, Francis Ronalds, and one or two more, these memoirs necessarily contain little information which has not been previously published in some shape or other. The authorities from which the present particulars have been taken are given at the end of each memoir; and the writer claims no further merit than that of having compiled and arranged the works of others, whose language, in most cases, it would indeed be presumption in him to alter, further than was necessary to present to the public in a clear, brief, and (it is hoped) readable form, the doings of men who must ever be held in the grateful remembrance of their country.