Some years after he had reached the allotted span, Roscoe was induced to think of putting his reminiscences on paper. It was at no time easy to get him to talk about himself, and the effort of recalling his recollections with a view to printing them was irksome to him. The autobiography consequently made no very rapid progress; it ultimately got into something like a tangle, and was more than once on the point of being committed to the flames. However, during a particularly stormy winter at the seaside, when he was confined to the house, a sustained effort on the part of a determined coadjutor got it into shape, and under the title of “The Life and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S. Written by Himself,” it was published by Macmillans in the spring of 1906. The book was well received. It was recognized as possessing at least two of the main essentials of a successful autobiography—something worth writing about and the faculty of narration. It is written with sincerity and directness, and with, as one critic said, “a charming simplicity of style and thought, illumined throughout by a soft glow of kindly humour” eminently characteristic of its author, and is of interest as a record of a singularly full and varied career. The gospel of work never had a more strenuous disciple. It has historical value also as the story of the educational changes, particularly in science, which he helped to secure or lived to witness. It reflects many of his noteworthy features: his strong common sense; his straightforwardness and honesty of purpose; his liberality and invincible optimism; his geniality and sense of humour. His enjoyment of a good story makes him tell it even if he is the victim of it. The whole is a pleasing picture of a uniformly calm, contented, and successful life—of the life of one who was what the Romans called “a man of good fortune,” that is, of one whose prosperity was not the result of chance or accident, but of wisdom and the capacity to bring its aims and efforts to a successful ending. CHAPTER IX ROSCOE AND THE ORGANIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES Roscoe was elected into the Royal Society in 1863, and served on its Council from 1872 to 1877, and again during two subsequent periods, viz. 1881-1883 and 1888-1890. He was a Vice-President in 1881-1882, and again in 1888-1890. He gave two Bakerian Lectures, viz. in 1865 and 1868, and was awarded a Royal Medal in 1873 “for his various Chemical Researches, more especially for his Investigations of the Chemical Action of Light, and of the Combinations of Vanadium.”