Slough
Dec 28/30
My dear Sir
I must apologise for leaving your note of the 15th <1> so long unanswered, having got mislaid. Nothing would be more agreeable to me than to sign your recommendation as an F.R.S., <2> but that, at present I wish to avoid doing anything that may appear to pledge me to the existing order of things in that institution, and have indeed for some time past and in repeated instances declined expressing the privilege of a Member in that respect.
Believe me dear Sir Yours very truly
JFW Herschel
Notes:
1. Letter not located.
2. WHFT was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in March 1831, proposed by Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle, and William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat. [See Larry J Schaaf, Out of the Shadows (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992) p. 20].