Reflections on the Decline of Science in England

Of the union of several offices in one person.

Although the number of situations to which persons conversant with science may hope to be appointed, is small, yet it has somewhat singularly happened, that instances of one individual, holding more than one such appointment, are frequent.  Not to speak of those held by the late Dr. Young, we have at present:—­

Mr. Pond—­Astronomer Royal, Inspector of Chronometers, and Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac.

Captain Sabine —­ An officer of artillery on leave of absence from his regiment; Secretary of the Royal Society; and Scientific Adviser of the Admiralty.

Mr. Brande—­Clerk of the Irons at the Royal Mint; Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution; Analyser of Rough Nitre, &c. to the East-India Company; Lecturer on Materia Medica, Apothecaries’ Hall; Superintending Chemical Operator at ditto; Lecturer on Chemistry at ditto; Editor of the Royal Institution Journal; and Foreign Secretary to the Royal Society.

One should be led to imagine, from these unions of scientific offices, either that science is too little paid, and that gentlemen cannot be found to execute the offices separately at the salaries offered; or else, that it is too well paid, since each requires such little attention, that almost any number can be executed by one person.

The Director of the Royal Observatory has a larger and better collection of instruments, and more assistants to superintend, than any other astronomer in the world; and, to do it properly, would require the almost undivided attention of a man in the vigour of youth.  Nor would a superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, if he made a point of being acquainted with every thing connected with his subject, find his situation at all a sinecure.  Slight as are the duties of the Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society, it might have been supposed that Mr. Brande would scarcely, amongst his multifarious avocations, have found time even for them.  But it may be a consolation to him to know, that from the progress the Society is making, those duties must become shortly, if they are not already, almost extinct.

Doubtless the President, in making that appointment, looked most anxiously over the list of the Royal Society.  He doubtless knew that the Academics of Sweden, of Denmark, of Scotland, of Prussia, of Hanover, and of France, derived honour from the discoveries of their Secretaries;—­that they prided themselves in the names of Berzelius, of Oersted, of Brewster, of Encke, of Gauss, and of Cuvier.  Doubtless the President must have been ambitious that England should contribute to this galaxy of glory, that the Royal Society should restore the lost Pleiad [Pleiades, an assemblage of seven stars in the neck of the constellation Taurus.  There are now only six of them visible to the naked eye.—­HUTTON’S DICTIONARY—­Art.  Pleiades.] to the admiring science of Europe.  But he could discover no kindred name amongst the ranks of his supporters, and forgot, for a moment, the interest of the Society, in an amiable consideration for the feelings of his surrounding friends.  For had the President chosen a brighter star, the lustre of his other officers might have been overpowered by its splendour:  but relieved from the pain of such a contrast, he may still retain the hope, that, by their united brightness, these suns of his little system shall yet afford sufficient light to be together visible to distant nations, as a faint NEBULA in the obscure horizon of English science.