So great an astronomer was necessarily most highly esteemed by astronomers. He was President of the Royal Society for two years; he was five times President of the Royal Astronomical Society, and twice received its gold medal, beside a special testimonial for his reduction of the Greenwich lunar observations. From the Royal Society he received the Copley medal and the Royal medal, beside honorary titles from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh. So invaluable a public servant, he received the distinction of a Knight Commandership of the Bath in 1872. He had been repeatedly offered knighthood before, but had not thought it well to receive it. He was in the receipt of decorations also from a great number of foreign countries; for, for many years, he was looked up to, not only by English astronomers, but by scientific men in all countries, as the very head and representative of his science. And he also received a more popular appreciation--and most justly so. For whilst no one could have less of the arts of the ordinary popularizer about him, no one has ever given popular lectures on astronomy which more fully corresponded to the ideal of what such should be than Airy's six lectures to working men, delivered at Ipswich. And we may count the bestowal upon him of the honorary freedom of the City of London, in 1875, as one of the tokens that his services in this direction had not been unappreciated. During the last seven years of his official career he undertook the working out of a lunar theory, and, to allow himself more leisure for its completion, he resigned his position August 15, 1881, after forty-six years of office. He was now eighty years of age, and he took up his residence at the White House, just outside Greenwich Park. He resided there till his death, more than ten years later--January 2, 1892. * * * * * Airy was succeeded in the Astronomer Royalship by the present and eighth holder of the office, W. H. M. CHRISTIE. He was born at Woolwich, in 1845, his father having been Professor Samuel Hunter Christie, F.R.S. He was educated at King's College, London, and Trinity College, Cambridge, graduating as fourth Wrangler in 1868. In 1870 he was appointed chief assistant at Greenwich, in succession to Mr. Stone, who had become her Majesty's astronomer at the Cape, and in 1881 he succeeded Airy as Astronomer Royal. [Illustration: W. H. M. CHRISTIE, ASTRONOMER ROYAL. (_From a photograph by Elliott and Fry._)]