others, as an earnest supporter of the practice of inoculation. In this field he was able to render good service, both by his professional influence and by his pen. In the sharp controversies which soon, and for a time, impeded the new practice, he took a large share, and his publications on the subject are distinguished from many others by their union of moderation of tone with vigour of advocacy. MATY’S predilections, however, pointed to a literary rather than to a medical career. He had early taken that ply, and it was not easily effaced. Within six years (1750–1756) he published eighteen volumes of the _Journal Britannique_—edited in London but printed at the Hague—in the toils of which he was, according to GIBBON, almost unaided. GIBBON, too, bears testimony to the amiability of the man, as well as to the industry of the writer. His own first and youthful achievement in literature had MATY’S encouragement and active aid. [Sidenote: _Memoirs of Gibbon_, p. 107.] When the _Essai sur l’Etude de la Littérature_ was, after much filing and polishing, given to the Public, a preliminary letter from MATY’S pen accompanied it, and by him the essay was carried through the press. When he succeeded Dr. Gowin KNIGHT, as Principal Librarian in 1772, his health was already failing. He occupied the post during less than four years. To the last, his pen was busily employed. He was a contributor to several foreign journals, as well as to the _Philosophical Transactions_, some volumes of which he edited, or assisted to edit, in his capacity as one of the Secretaries of the Royal Society, to which office he had been appointed in 1765. Among his minor literary publications are a life of BOERHAAVE, in French, and one of Dr. Richard MEAD, in English. At the time of his death he was working on the _Life of Lord Chesterfield_, afterwards prefixed to the collective edition of the Earl’s _Miscellaneous Works_. Dr. MATY died in 1776, and was succeeded in his Librarianship by his colleague, Dr. Charles MORTON, who had had, from the beginning, the charge of the department of Manuscripts, and had also acted as Secretary to the Trustees. [Sidenote: NOTICE OF DR. CHARLES MORTON, THIRD PRINCIPAL LIBRARIAN.]