TUE CIVIL LIST PENSIONS TO MEN OF SCIENCE. TO THE
EDITOR or THE SPECTATo....
oetol,e, • SIN—The public are much indebted f•r the valuable abstract and which you give from time to time of P.Irliamentary Papets. In your remarks on the Civil List Pensions, there are a few slight correcticr.3 which it may be us well to mention. Sir JAMES SOUTH, Who has a pension of COOL a year, is not Astronomer Royal. Romano AIRLY, With a similar pension, should be GEORGE B. AIREV ; he is the Astronomer Royal, with a salary of SUO/. a year, house, Se. Amongst the " Melbourne Imitations of Peel," )(HI put Mrs. Soars:mute an additional 1001. This, it is well known, did Out arise from the imitative faculty, but followed as an apology for the Irish Whig job of a pension of 1.3001., a year to Lady Mulma N, which excited universal disgust in the world of nature as well as of science.
The pension to Mr. Fa iteliAY was premised, and all but completed, by It one RI. PEEL. On the accession of the Whigs to effice, they refused to com- plete the grant ; but, after some haggling and much pressing, Lord MELnot:ut E reluctantly yielded ; expressing at the same time his opinion, that "these pep:. stuns to men of science we, e all Aumbuy." The two pensions of 150/. and 2001. to the eminent chemist Dr. DALTOY, and to the philosopher Sir Deem BREWSTER, were given to make up tin:: former pensions to the standard amount of 000/. a year. • It may be quite true, as you suggest, that neither party have any feeling fir literature and science, and that Sir Rounar PEEL's pensions mere given to court popularity, and Lord MELBOURNE'S as a set-off. It must, however, be conceded, in justice to the former Minister, that the pensions you have anti. buted to him were tidy bestowed, and appear not to have been dictated by party feelings, but out of deference to public opinion; whilst, on the other hand, the Whigs, who when out of oilier were always declaiming in favour of education and science, have when in office shown their neglect of the one and their ear• tempt fur the other. The motives of public men can only be deduced from their conduct, and fie: people look rather to their deeds. gathering strength and wealth of the liiitish Association prove that the public mind is in advance of that of their rulers upon the question tit' the importance of science. The Whigs, as in the instances of Lord .31E1.110VILNE and Lord Deltlet SI, have deserted their natural position ; and the shrewd leader of the Tory party is not slow to perceive the advantage, and will doubtless on; any favourable opportunity take the earliest moment fur appropriating it. I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Vieth. Vieth.
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