Should circumstances prevent me from sending, or you from receiving any other communication from me before the autumn (for nothing is more uncertain than the post in Austria, as they take time to read the letters), I hope this, which I shall go to Bavaria to send, will reach you safe, and will be sufficient to settle the affair of resignation. It was my intention to have said nothing on the subject of my successor. I will support by all the means in my power the person that the leading members of the Society shall place in the chair; but I cannot resist an expression of satisfaction in the hope you held out, that an illustrious friend of the Society, illustrious from his talents, his former situation, and, I may say, his late conduct, is likely to be my successor. I wish my name to be in the next Council, as I shall certainly return, _Deo volente_, before the end of the session, and I may, I think, be of use; and likewise, because I hope it may be clearly understood that my feelings for the Society are, as they always were, those of warm attachment and respect. Writing still makes my head ache, and raises my pulse. I will therefore conclude, my dear Sir, in returning you my sincere thanks for the trouble you have had on my account, and assuring you that I am Your obliged and grateful friend and servant, H. DAVY. Pray acknowledge the receipt of this letter, by addressing me, "_poste restante_, Laybach, Illyria, Austria;" and let me know if Mr. Hudson is still Assistant-Secretary, and where Mr. South is. I send this letter from Frauenstein, Bavaria, July 2, that it may not be opened, as all my letters were at Salzburgh. There was one of them must have _amused_ Prince Metternich, on the state of parties in England, from a Member of the Upper House. In consequence of this letter, the Council of the Royal Society, by a resolution passed at a very full meeting held on the 6th of November, 1827, appointed Mr. Davies Gilbert to fill the chair, until the general body should elect a President, at the ensuing anniversary. The following letter will show his subsequent course of proceeding. TO THOMAS POOLE, Park Street, Grosvenor Square, Oct. 29, 1827. MY DEAR POOLE, I hope you received a letter which I addressed to you from Ravenna in the spring. It was my intention to have returned to Italy from the Alpine countries, where I spent the summer; but my recovery has been so slow, and so much uneasiness in the head and weakness in the limbs remained in September, that I thought it wiser to return to my medical advisers in London.