Peel was now Prime Minister as First Lord of the Treasury, and Lord
Lyndhurst was Lord Chancellor. On Jan. 19th I wrote to Lord
Lyndhurst, asking him for a Suffolk living for my brother William,
which he declined to give, though he remembered my application some
years later. Whether my application led to the favour which I shortly
received from the Government, I do not know. But, in dining with the
Duke of Sussex in the last year, I had been introduced to Sir R. Peel,
and he had conversed with me a long time, and appeared to have heard
favourably of me. On Feb. 17th he wrote to me an autograph letter
offering a pension of _L300_ per annum, with no terms of any kind, and
allowing it to be settled if I should think fit on my wife. I wrote
on Feb. 18th accepting it for my wife. In a few days the matter went
through the formal steps, and Mr Whewell and Mr Sheepshanks were
nominated trustees for my wife. The subject came before Parliament, by
the Whig Party vindicating their own propriety in having offered me
the office of Astronomer Royal in the preceding year; and Spring
Rice's letter then written to me was published in the Times, &c."
* * * * *
The correspondence relating to the pension above-mentioned is given
below, and appears to be of interest, both as conveying in very
felicitous terms the opinion of a very eminent statesman on the
general subject of such pensions, and as a most convincing proof of
the lofty position in Science which the subject of this Memoir had
then attained.
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