journey into the wilds of Kerry. There he was overtaken by the news of the illness of his children from small-pox in Dublin. 'I can say nothing,' he writes to Lady Petty, under the renewal of this calamity 'but that I have been earnest with Almighty God for their deliverance and your patience in the worst of events, hoping that you leave the disease to Nature without interfering anything of pretended art. This letter may come to your hands about the 3rd of October, and in what conditions it will find you God knows. With reference to both the Children, I can only repeat my prayers for your Christian courage and patience, and tell you how joyful and thankful I should be in case of a good event. But otherwise I cannot tell you how I shall bear it.'[1]
Returning to Dublin, Sir William found his children on the road to recovery. He is next heard of busy with the formal incorporation of the Philosophical Society of Ireland on the same lines as those of the parent society in England, and in the establishment of the Dublin College of Physicians. In both these societies he maintained a constant interest. For the Irish Society he drew up a sort of scientific primer, or, as he termed it, 'a catalogue of mean, vulgar, cheap and simple experiments.'[2] He also drafted the original rules and constitution, or, as they were termed, the 'advertisements of the Society.'[3] In after-years his activity on these two learned bodies was looked back to in Ireland as 'the instrument, under God, of reforming the practice of physick in that kingdom.'[4]
Minutes of the Dublin Society, 1683-84.[5]
'Jan. 28, 1683-4.—Sir W. Petty produced an instrument in wood contrived by himself for explaining the difficulty about the volution of concentrick circles or wheels, on which he promised to discourse at the next meeting.
