Fifty years ago, when this Royal Society was a hundred years old, it fell to Lord Moncrieff, the President, to speak to the occasion. He sketched the history of the Society through its hundred years, and dwelt most on the days when it was born. He told how the Founders made their way one winter's night from homes in Lawnmarket or Canongate to the College Library (as Johnson and Boswell had lately done), with a few flickering oil-lamps to light the way and tallow-candles which dimly lit the room.