During this spring Magrath and I established the mutual-improvement plan, and met at my rooms up in the attics of the Royal Institution, or at Wood Street at his warehouse. It consisted perhaps of half-a-dozen persons, chiefly from the City Philosophical Society, who met of an evening to read together, and to criticise, correct, and improve each other’s pronunciation and construction of language. The discipline was very sturdy, the remarks very plain and open, and the results most valuable. This continued for several years. [Sidenote: AT WORK IN CHEMISTRY.] He writes, after a week of work at the Royal Institution, to Abbott:-- Royal Institution, March 8, 1813. It is now about nine o’clock, and the thought strikes me that the tongues are going both at Tatum’s and at the lecture in Bedford Street; but I fancy myself much better employed than I should have been at the lecture at either of those places. Indeed, I have heard one lecture already to-day, and had a finger in it (I can’t say a hand, for I did very little). It was by Mr. Powell, on mechanics, or rather on rotatory motion, and was a pretty good lecture, but not very fully attended. As I know you will feel a pleasure in hearing in what I have been or shall be occupied, I will inform you that I have been employed to-day, in part, in extracting the sugar from a portion of beetroot, and also in making a compound of sulphur and carbon--a combination which has lately occupied in a considerable degree the attention of chemists. With respect to next Wednesday, I shall be occupied until late in the afternoon by Sir H. Davy, and must therefore decline seeing you at that time; this I am the more ready to do as I shall enjoy your company next Sunday, and hope to possess it often in a short time.