Within about ninety years, the Society had distributed more than 100,000l. in premiums. The growth of forest trees was one of its early objects of encouragement; and we find among the recipients of its gold medals the Dukes of Bedford and Beaufort, the Earls of Winterton, Upper Ossory, and Mansfield; and Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff. Then came agriculture, chemistry, manufactures, and mechanics. In the latter, the Society taught us, or at least aided those who did so, the manufacture of Turkey carpet, tapestry, weaving, and weaving to imitate the Marseilles and India quilting; also, how to improve our spinning and lace-making, our paper, and our catgut for musical instruments, our straw-bonnets, and artificial flowers.
The colonies shared in the Society's early encouragement: potash and pearlash were produced by its agent in North America; and it was busily engaged, just before the breaking out of the war of independence, in introducing the culture of the vine, the growth of silk-worms, and the manufacture of ))indigo and vegetable oils. But the rewards given to poor Bethnal-green and Spitalfields weavers, for useful inventions in their calling, illustrate, perhaps even better than any of the foregoing instances, the object of the Society which so honourably distinguishes it from other associations—its readiness to receive, examine, and reward every kind of useful invention that may be brought forward by those who have neither friends nor money to aid them in making their inventions known.
Nor must we forget Barry's grand series of paintings upon the Society's large room; of which Dr. Johnson said, "there is a grasp of mind there, which you will find nowhere else." Upon the walls, too, hang some fine portraits of the early presidents of the Society, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
VAST MIRRORS.
Mirrors are cast of larger dimensions at St. Petersburg than elsewhere. In the imperial manufactory, there was cast for Prince Potemkin, a mirror measuring 194 inches by 100. One of the same proportions, valued at 3000 guineas, was cast for the Duke of Wellington many years since, but was broken to atoms in its conveyance from St. Petersburg to England.
TRANSPORTATION OF THE COFFEE-TREE.
One of the most interesting episodes in the history of coffee is, that of the transportation of the plant of the coffee-tree, taken from the hothouses of Amsterdam, given to Louis XIV., and father of the three plants, one of which was taken to the French Antilles by Captain Declieux, who, in a scarcity of water experienced by the ship's crew, shared the small quantity which he had to drink, between himself and his dear coffee-plant. It is believed that from this plant has sprung all the coffee grown in the West Indies.