Mr President,—It has been a practice from the foundation of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, to commemorate its deceased distinguished members by memoirs or biographical notices, read at the ordinary meetings of the Society. Some of these have been printed in the Transactions; and our published volumes are enriched by papers of Dugald Stewart, Professor Playfair, Sir John MacNeil, and Dr Traill, on the characters and writings of Adam Smith, Dr Hutton, Professor Robison, Sir Charles Bell, and Dr Hope. A biographical notice is now due to the memory of a distinguished countryman, late Vice-President of the Royal Society; and the following remarks will, in attempting that object, make a deviation from those more severe discussions with which the time of the Society is usually occupied, in connection either with pure mathematics, natural philosophy, or natural history.