rred to the new one. I was
one of the committee which made the preliminary inquiries, and the reason
of the decline was soon manifest. The only question which could arise was
whether the members of the society of working men--for this repute still
continued--were of that class of educated men who could associate with the
Fellows of the Astronomical Society on terms agreeable to all parties. We
found that the artisan element had been extinct for many years; there was
not a man but might, as to education, manners, and position, have become a
Fellow in the usual way. The fact was that life in Spitalfields had become
harder: and the weaver could {378} only live from hand to mouth, and not up
to the brain. The material of the old Society no longer existed.

In 1798, experimental lectures were given, a small charge for admission
being taken at the door: by this hangs a tale--and a song. Many years ago,
I found among papers of a deceased friend, who certainly never had anything
to do with the Society, and who passed all his life far from London, a
song, headed "Song sung by the Mathematical Society in London, at a dinner
given Mr. Fletcher,[771] a solicitor, who had defended the Society gratis."
Mr. Williams,[772] the Assistant Secretary of the Astronomical Society,
formerly Secretary of the Mathematical Society, remembered that the Society
had had a solicitor named Fletcher among the members. Some years elapsed
before it struck me that my old friend Benjamin Gompertz,[773] who had long
been a member, might have some recollection of the matter. The following is
an extract of a letter from him (July 9, 1861):

"As to the Mathematical Society, of which I was a member when only 18 years
of age, [Mr. G. was born in 1779], having been, contrary to the rules,
elected under the age of 21. How I came to be a member of that Society--and
continued so until it joined the Astronomical Society, and was then the
President--was: I happened to pass a bookseller's small shop, of
second-hand books, kept by a poor taylor, but a good mathematician, John
Griffiths. I was very pleased to meet a mathematician, and I asked him if
he would give me some lessons; and his reply was that I was more capable to
teach him, but he belonged to a society of mathematicians, and he would
introduce me. I accepted the offer, and I was elected, and had many
scholars then to teach, as {379} one of the rules was, if a member asked
for information, and applied to any on