were this day on Fire, and how it goes out in a place where the ayre is not free, and sooner out where the air is exhausted, which they showed by an
engine on purpose." — Vol. ii., p. 248.On March 1st he seems to have paid his admission money, forty shillings, to the Society. On January 9th, just previous to his elec- tion, Pepys was present at a meeting at Gresham College, and —
"Saw the Royal Society bring their new book, wherein is nobly writ their charter and laws, and comes to be signed by the Duke* as a Fellow ; and all the Fellows' hands are to be entered there and lie as a monument ; and the King hath put his with the word Founder." — Vol. ii., p. 238.
In what spirit the merry monarch thus inscribed his roval autograph in the Fellows' book may be well guessed, for in Pepys 1 pages do we not read (February 1st, 1663-4) how his Majesty "mightily laughed at Gresham College for spending time only in weighing of air and doing nothing else" ? It is perhaps only fair, however, to add here that Bishop Sprat, in his History of the Society, says the King evinced "much satisfaction that this enter- prise was begun in his reign," and in various ways displayed interest in the success of the Society thus happily inaugurated. The "new book" is still in use, containing the autograph of every Fellow from the institution of the Society to the present day.
We now from time to time come upon entries in the 'Diary' referring to papers read before, and the proceedings generally of, the Society, at whose meetings Pepys evidently had become a frequent and zealous attendant. On March 1st, 1664-5, we read: —
"To Gresham College, where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late comet ; among other things proving very probably that this is the very same comet that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion ; but all will be in print." — Vol. ii., p. 253.
The 'Philosophical Transactions,' by which name the published proceedings of the Royal Society are known, commence on the 6th March, 1664-5, and continue to the present day. By their means the papers and other matters spoken of by Pepys may be traced with tolerable readiness. The "late comet" referred to was the subject of several papers, and will be found described in Mr. Russell Hind's exhaustive little treatise on those bodies.
The Duke of York.
