f investigation
became rapidly more limited within this period. He was secretary of
the Royal Society, a member of the London School Board, president of
the British Association, Lord Rector at several universities, member
of many royal commissions, government inspector of fisheries,
president of the Geological Society. In this multitude of duties it
was natural that the bulk of strictly scientific output was limited,
but, on the other hand, his literary output was much larger. Between
1880 and 1890 he had reached the full maturity of a splendid
reputation, and honours and duties pressed thick upon him. For part of
the time he was president of the Royal Society, the most distinguished
position to which a scientific man in England can attain, and he was
held by the general public at least in as high esteem as by his
scientific contemporaries. A small amount of original scientific work
still appeared from his pen, but he was occupied chiefly with more
general contributions to thought.

[Illustration: CARICATURE OF HUXLEY DRAWN BY HIMSELF
Reproduced by permission from _Natural Science_, vol. vii., No. 46]

Throughout his life, Huxley had never been robust. From his youth
upwards he had been troubled by dyspepsia with its usual accompaniment
of occasional fits of severe mental and physical depression. In 1872
he was compelled to take a long holiday in Egypt, and, although he
returned to resume full labour, it is doubtful if from that time
onwards he recovered even the strength normal to him. In 1885, his
ill-health became grave; in the following years he had two attacks of
pleurisy, and symptoms of cardiac mischief became pressing. He
gradually withdrew from his official posts, and, in 1890, retired to
Eastbourne, where he had built himself a house on the Downs. The more
healthy conditions and the comparative leisure he permitted himself
had a good effect, and he was able to write some of his most
brilliant essays and to make a few public appearances: at Oxford in
1893, when he delivered the Romanes lecture; at the meeting of the
British Association in 1894, when he spoke on the vote of thanks to
the President, the Marquis of Salisbury; at the Royal Society in the
same year when he received the recently established "Darwin Medal."
Early in the spring of 1895, he had a prostrating attack of influenza,
and from that time until his death on June 29, 1895, he was an
invalid. He was buried in the Marylebone cemetery at Finchley