Is there anything which can now afford me any consolation? Yes, she is not lost, but gone before; but still it is hard to have all our schemes of happiness wrecked when our bark was within sight of port. When we were promising ourselves more than common felicity it struck upon a rock; my only treasure went to the bottom, and I am cast ashore friendless and deprived of every comfort. My poor dead love had been as well as usual during the two or three last months, and even on the dreadful evening (Christmas Eve) she spoke with pleasure of the approaching event. My spirits were elevated to so uncommon a pitch by the birth of a lovely daughter, that they were by no means prepared for the succeeding scene; and they have been so overwhelmed that I sometimes hope it may be a dream out of which I wish to awake. The little infant is well, and I have called it Catherine, a name which must ever be dear to me, and which I wish to be able to apply to some object whom I love; for, though it caused the death of my hopes, it is dear to me as being the last precious relic of her whom everybody, who knew her, esteemed, and I loved. I must now bid adieu to every comfort and live only for the sweet babes. Oh! ’tis hard, very hard! THOMAS GARNETT. In the summer of 1799 Count Rumford wrote to Dr. Garnett, to whom he was then an entire stranger, for information regarding the nature and economy of Anderson’s Institution and the plan of the lectures given there. This led finally to the proposal that Dr. Garnett should become the first lecturer at Rumford’s new Institution in London. On October 15 Dr. Garnett informed a special meeting of the managers of Anderson’s Institution of his wish to resign his situation in order to go to London. When Dr. Garnett arrived, December 23, the managers of the Royal Institution resolved that he should be styled Professor of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry to the Royal Institution. He sent to the board a letter from which a view of the earliest lectures at the Institution can be obtained. PROFESSOR GARNETT TO THE MANAGERS. December 23, 1799.