Probably few men have ever been recipients of so many scientific honours as Faraday. Beginning in the year 1823 with his election as a corresponding member of the Académie des Sciences of Paris, and as an honorary member of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the list of his diplomas and distinctions--some ninety-seven in number--ended in 1864 with his election as Associate of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Naples. It included honours from almost every academy and university of Europe. These honours Faraday valued very highly; and whilst he consigned his various gold medals to a mere wooden box, his diplomas were kept with the utmost care in a special diploma book, in which they were mounted and indexed. To Mr. Spring Rice, who in 1838 asked him for a list of his titles, he replied, enclosing the list, and adding this remark: “One title, namely that of F.R.S., was sought and paid for; all the rest are spontaneous offerings of kindness and goodwill from the bodies named.” Years afterwards he was asked by Lord Wrottesley to advise the Government as to how the position of science or of the cultivators of science in England might be improved. The letter is so characteristic that it cannot be spared:-- Royal Institution: March 10, 1854. MY LORD,--I feel unfit to give a deliberate opinion on the course it might be advisable for the Government to pursue if it were anxious to improve the position of science and its cultivators in our country. My course of life, and the circumstances which make it a happy one for me, are not those of persons who conform to the usages and habits of society. Through the kindness of all, from my Sovereign downwards, I have that which supplies all my need; and in respect of honours, I have, as a scientific man, received from foreign countries and sovereigns those which, belonging to very limited and select classes, surpass in my opinion anything that it is in the power of my own to bestow. I cannot say that I have not valued such distinctions; on the contrary, I esteem them very highly, but I do not think I have ever worked for or sought after them. Even were such to be now created here, the time is past when these would possess any attraction for me....