tained. He was well known also as a very extensive and judicious collector of books, prints, drawings and paintings, and was endeared to a large circle of private friends, amongst the most cultivated classes of society in this country, by his refined yet simple manners, his happy temper, and his many social and domestic virtues.
Sir Abraham Hume, who had attained at the time of his death the venerable age of ninety years, was the father of the Royal Society; he was a man of cultivated taste and very extensive acquirements, and throughout his life a liberal patron and encourager of the fine arts.
Lord Farnborough was the son-in-law of Sir Abraham Hume, whom he greatly resembled in his tastes and accomplishments; for more than thirty years of his life he held various public situations in the successive administrations of this country, but quitted his official employments on his elevation to the peerage in 1826: from that period he devoted himself almost entirely to the improvement and decoration of his beautiful residence at Bromley Hill; to the proposal and promotion of plans for the architectural improvement of the metropolis; to the selection of pictures for the National Gallery, which he greatly enriched by his bequests; and to the various duties imposed upon him by his official connexion with the British Museum, and many other public institutions.
The Earl of Eldon, though possessing few relations with science or literature, presents too remarkable an example of the openings afforded by the institutions of this country to men of great and commanding talents for the attainment of the highest rank and wealth, to be passed over without notice in this obituary of our deceased Fellows. Lord Eldon was matriculated as a member of University College, Oxford, under the tuition of his brother, afterwards Lord Stowell, in 1766; and an academical prize which he gained in the following year, for an "Essay on the Advantages of Foreign Travel," gave the first evidence of his possession of those great powers of minute analysis and careful research, which made him afterwards so celebrated. His early marriage terminated somewhat prematurely his academical prospects, and forced him to adopt the profession of the law, after narrowly escaping other occupations of a much more humble character. He was compelled to struggle for several years of his life with poverty and discouragement, when a fortunate opportunity enabled him to give proof of his extraordinary attainments, and rapidly conducted him to the command of wealth and professional eminence. After filling with great distinction the offices of Solicitor and Attorney-General, he became Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas and a peer in 1799, and finally Lord Chancellor of England in 1801, a situation which he continued to hold, with a short interruption, for nearly a quarter of a century. Of his political character and conduct it becomes not me to speak; but his profound knowledge of the laws of England, his unrivalled acuteness and sagacity, and his perfect impartiality and love of justice, have received the concurrent acknowledgment and admiration of men of all parties.
The Rev. Thomas Catton, Senior Fellow of St. John's College,
