CHAPTER XIII.
Memoir of Lord Somers—Committee appointed to wait uponhim—Society receive valuable present from the East IndiaCompany —Halley sails on a Scientific Expedition—Mr. Jonessent by the Society on an Expedition of Discovery—Resolutionnot to give opinions in Scientific Controversies—The Transac-tioneei —Dr. Woodward disowns the Work—Favour shownto the Academy of Sciences —Letter of M. Geoffroy—Zeal ofSir Hans Sloane—Savery exhibits his Steam-engine —PresentsDrawing of it to Society—Receives a Certificate—Performanceof the Engine—Death of Ilooke—His interest in the Society—His design of endowing the Society—His Wealth—Proposalto rebuild Gresham College—Wren furnishes plan of roomsfor the Society—Scheme abandoned—The Society resolve onbuilding or buying a House—Lord Somers resigns—Sir IsaacNewton elected President .
1695 — 1705 .
1 1 HE election of Lord Somers to the office of Presi-dent, reflects great lustre upon the Royal Society ,“ He was a man,” says Lord Campbell , in his Lives ofthe Lord Chancellors, “ eminent as a lawyer, a states-man, and a man of letters,—the whole of whose publiccareer and character I can conscientiously praise—and whose private life, embellished by many virtues,could not have been liable to any grave imputation,since it has received the unqualified approbation ofAddison.”
The family to which Lord Somers belonged, hadlong been proprietors of a small estate in the parishof Severn Stoke, in the county of Gloucester; and ofthe site of a dissolved nunnery, called the “ WhiteLadies,” a short distance from Worcester .