SLOANE conceived that _The Transactioneer_ was the production of Dr. John WOODWARD—the author of _Natural History of the Earth_—who was himself a member of the Royal Society’s Council. WOODWARD, in denying the imputation, endorsed the satire. ‘Whether there was not some occasion given,’ he said to the Council, ‘may be worth your consideration. This I am sure of: The world has been now, for some time past, very loud upon that subject. [Sidenote: _Newton Correspondence and Papers_; cited by Brewster, in _Memoirs_, &c. (2nd Edit.), vol. ii, ff. 185, 186.] And there were those who laid the charges so much wrong, that I have but too often had occasion to vindicate the Society itself, and that in public company.’ The ill feeling thus excited lasted a long time. It seemed at length, that the Society must lose either the services of its laborious Secretary or those of his active-tongued opponent. The petty dissension came to a height when SLOANE chanced to make some passing medical comment on the words ‘the bezoar is a gall-stone,’ occurring in a paper which he was reading to the Society, from the Memoirs of the Parisian Academy of Sciences. SLOANE’S casual remark drew from WOODWARD the offensive words, ‘No man who understands anatomy would make such an assertion.’ On another occasion he interrupted some observation or other made by SLOANE, by exclaiming—‘Speak sense, or English, and we shall understand you.’ A friend or two of WOODWARD tried hard to back him by enlisting the illustrious President on their side. They reminded NEWTON that he had been often himself impatient under the medical dissertations, and they praised Dr. WOODWARD’S acquirements in philosophy. ‘For a seat in the Council,’ replied Sir Isaac, ‘a man should be a moral philosopher, as well as a natural one.’ [Sidenote: Records of the Royal Society.] Eventually, it was resolved: ‘That Dr. WOODWARD be removed from the Council, for creating a disturbance by the said reflecting words upon Dr. SLOANE.’ The latter was of a very forgiving temper, and he soon sought to be reconciled with his adversary. His professional course, meanwhile, was steadily upward. A friendship which he had contracted in 1705 with Dr. SYDENHAM greatly aided his progress. SYDENHAM was retiring from practice, and gave to SLOANE his cordial recommendations. In 1712[50] he was made Physician Extraordinary to the Queen, whom he attended, two years afterwards, on her death bed. He filled the office of Physician-in-Chief to GEORGE THE FIRST, by whom, on the 3rd April, 1716, he was created a Baronet. He was, I believe, the first physician who received that dignity. In 1719 he became President of the College of Physicians. In 1727 he received the crowning honour of a life which, to an unusual degree, had already been replete with honourable distinctions of almost every kind. He was placed in the chair of the Royal Society, as the next successor of NEWTON.