Chapter 4

And feed you with vic-tu-als you ne-ver could bear.

The book was hyphened for the beginner's use; and I had not the least idea thatvic-tu-alswerevittles: by the sound of the word I judged they must be of iron; and it entered into my soul.

The worst of the phonetic shorthand book is that they nowhere, so far as I have seen, giveallthe symbols, in every stage of advancement, together, in one or following pages. It is symbols and talk, more symbols and more talk, etc. A universal view of the signs ought to begin the works.

A HANDFUL OF LITTLE PARADOXERS.

Ombrological Almanac. Seventeenth year. An essay on Anemology and Ombrology. By Peter Legh,[170]Esq. London, 1856, 12mo.

Mr. Legh, already mentioned, was an intelligent country gentleman, and a legitimate speculator. But the clue was not reserved for him.

The proof that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles looked for in the inflation of the circle. By Gen. Perronet Thompson. London, 1856, 8vo. (pp. 4.)

Another attempt, the third, at this old difficulty, which cannot be put into few words of explanation.[171]

Comets considered as volcanoes, and the cause of their velocity and other phenomena thereby explained. London (circa1856), 8vo.

The title explains the book better than the book explains the title.

1856. A stranger applied to me to know what the ideas of a friend of his were worth upon the magnitude of the earth. The matter being one involving points of antiquity, I mentioned various persons whose speculations he seemed to have ignored; among others, Thales. The reply was, "I am instructed by the author to inform you that he is perfectly acquainted with the works of Thales, Euclid, Archimedes, ..." I had some thought of asking whether he had used the Elzevir edition of Thales,[172]which is known to be very incomplete, or that of Professor Niemand with the lections, Nirgend, 1824, 2 vols. folio; just to see whether thelast would not have been the very edition he had read. But I refrained, in mercy.

The moon is the image of the Earth, and is not a solid body. By TheLongitude.[173](Private Circulation.) In five parts. London, 1856, 1857, 1857; Calcutta, 1858, 1858, 8vo.

The earth is "brought to a focus"; it describes a "looped orbit round the sun." The eclipse of the sun is thus explained: "At the time of eclipses, the image is more or less so directly before or behind the earth that, in the case of new moon, bright rays of the sun fall and bear upon the spot where the figure of the earth is brought to a focus, that is, bear upon the image of the earth, when a darkness beyond is produced reaching to the earth, and the sun becomes more or less eclipsed." How the earth is "brought to a focus" we do not find stated. Writers of this kind always have the argument that some things which have been ridiculed at first have been finally established. Those who put into the lottery had the same kind of argument; but were always answered by being reminded how many blanks there were to one prize. I am loath to pronounce against anything: but it does force itself upon me that the author of these tracts has drawn a blank.

LUNAR MOTION AGAIN.

Times, April 6 or 7, 1856. The moon has no rotary motion.

A letter from Mr. Jellinger Symons,[174]inspector of schools, which commenced a controversy of many letters and pamphlets. This dispute comes on at intervals, and will continue to do so. It sometimes arises from inability to understand the character of simple rotation, geometrically; sometimes from not understanding the mechanical doctrine of rotation.

Lunar Motion. The whole argument stated, and illustrated by diagrams; with letters from the Astronomer Royal. By Jellinger C. Symons. London, 1856, 8vo.

The Astronomer Royal endeavored to disentangle Mr. J. C. Symons, but failed. Mr. Airy[175]can correct the error of a ship's compasses, because he can put her head which way he pleases: but this he cannot do with a speculator.

Mr. Symons, in this tract, insinuated that the rotation of the moon is one of the silver shrines of the craftsmen. To see a thing so clearly as to be satisfied that all who say they do not see it are telling wilful falsehood, is the nature of man. Many of all sects find much comfort in it, when they think of the others; many unbelievers solace themselves with it against believers; priests of old time founded the right of persecution upon it, and of our time, in some cases, the right of slander: many of the paradoxers make it an argument against students of science. But I must say for men of science, for the whole body, that they are fully persuaded of the honesty of the paradoxers. The simple truth is, that all those I have mentioned, believers, unbelievers, priests, paradoxers, are not so sure they are right in their points of difference that they can safely allow themselves to be persuaded of the honesty of opponents. Those who know demonstration are differently situated. I suspect a train might be laid for the formation of a better habit in this way. We know that Suvaroff[176]taught his Russians at Ismail not to fear the Turks by accustoming them to charge bundles of faggots dressed in turbans, etc.

At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty,He made no answer—but he took the city!

At which your wise men sneered in phrases witty,

He made no answer—but he took the city!

Would it not be a good thing to exercise boys, in pairs, in the following dialogue:—Sir, you are quite wrong!—Sir,I am sure you honestly think so! This was suggested by what used to take place at Cambridge in my day. By statute, every B.A. was obliged to perform a certain number of disputations, and thefatherof the college had to affirm that it had been done. Some were performed in earnest: the rest were huddled over as follows. Two candidates occupied the places of the respondent and the opponent:Recte statuit Newtonus, said the respondent:Recte non statuit Newtonus,[177]said the opponent. This was repeated the requisite number of times, and counted for as manyactsandopponencies. The parties then changed places, and each unsaid what he had said on the other side of the house: I remember thinking that it was capital drill for the House of Commons, if any of us should ever get there. The process was repeated with every pair of candidates.

The real disputations were very severe exercises. I was badgered for two hours with arguments given and answered in Latin,—or what we called Latin—against Newton's first section, Lagrange's[178]derived functions, and Locke[179]on innate principles. And though Itook offeverything, and was pronounced by the moderator to have disputedmagno honore,[180]I never had such a strain of thought in my life. For the inferior opponents were made as sharp as their betters by their tutors, who kept lists of queer objections, drawn from all quarters. The opponents used to meet the day before to compare their arguments, that the same might not come twice over. But, after I left Cambridge, it became the fashion to invite the respondent to be present, who therefore learnt all that was to be brought against him. This made the whole thing a farce: and the disputations were abolished.

The Doctrine of the Moon's Rotation, considered in a letter to the Astronomical Censor of theAthenæum. By Jones L. MacElshender.[181]Edinburgh, 1856, 8vo.

This is an appeal to those cultivated persons who will read it "to overrule thedictaof judges who would sacrifice truth and justice to professional rule, or personal pique, pride, or prejudice"; meaning, the great mass of those who have studied the subject. But how? Suppose the "cultivated persons" were to side with the author, would those who have conclusions to draw and applications to make consent to be wrong because the "general body of intelligent men," who make no special study of the subject, are against them? They would do no such thing: they would request the general body of intelligent men to find their own astronomy, and welcome. But the truth is, that this intelligent body knows better: and no persons know better that they know better than the speculators themselves.

But suppose the general body were to combine, in opposition to those who have studied. Of course all my list must be admitted to their trial; and then arises the question whether both sides are to be heard. If so, the general body of the intelligent must hear all the established side have to say: that is, they must become just as much of students as the inculpated orthodox themselves. And will they not then get intoprofessional rule, pique, pride, and prejudice, as the others did? But if, which I suspect, they are intended to judge as they are, they will be in a rare difficulty. All the paradoxers are of like pretensions: they cannot, as a class, be right, for each one contradicts a great many of the rest. There will be the puzzle which silenced the crew of the cutter in Marryat's novel of the Dog Fiend.[182]"A tog is a tog," said Jansen.—"Yes," replied another, "we all know a dog is a dog; but the question is—Isthisdoga dog?" And this question would arise upon every dog of them all.

ZETETIC ASTRONOMY.

Zetetic Astronomy: Earth not a globe. 1857 (Broadsheet).

Though only a traveling lecturer's advertisement, there are so many arguments and quotations that it is a little pamphlet. The lecturer gained great praise from provincial newspapers for his ingenuity in proving that the earth is a flat, surrounded by ice. Some of the journals rather incline to the view: but theLeicester Advertiserthinks that the statements "would seem very seriously to invalidate some of the most important conclusions of modern astronomy," while theNorfolk Heraldis clear that "there must be a great error on one side or the other." This broadsheet is printed at Aylesbury in 1857, and the lecturer calls himselfParallax: but at Trowbridge, in 1849, he was S. Goulden.[183]In this last advertisement is the following announcement: "A paper on the above subjects was read before the Council and Members of the Royal Astronomical Society, Somerset House, Strand, London (Sir John F. W. Herschel,[184]President), Friday, Dec. 8, 1848." No account of such a paper appears in theNoticefor that month: I suspect that the above is Mr. S. Goulden's way of representing the following occurrence: Dec. 8, 1848, the Secretary of the Astronomical Society (De Morgan by name) said, at the close of the proceedings,—"Now, gentlemen, if you will promise not to tell the Council, I will read something for your amusement": and he then read a few of the arguments which had been transmitted by the lecturer. The fact is worth noting that from 1849 to 1857, arguments on the roundness or flatness of the earth did itinerate. I haveno doubt they did much good: for very few persons have any distinct idea of the evidence for the rotundity of the earth. TheBlackburn StandardandPreston Guardian(Dec. 12 and 16, 1849) unite in stating that the lecturer ran away from his second lecture at Burnley, having been rather too hard pressed at the end of his first lecture to explain why the large hull of a ship disappeared before the sails. The persons present and waiting for the second lecture assuaged their disappointment by concluding that the lecturer had slipped off the icy edge of his flat disk, and that he would not be seen again till he peeped up on the opposite side.

But, strange as it may appear, the opposer of the earth's roundness has more of a case—or less of a want of case—than the arithmetical squarer of the circle. The evidence that the earth is round is but cumulative and circumstantial: scores of phenomena ask, separately and independently, what other explanation can be imagined except the sphericity of the earth. The evidence for the earth's figure is tremendously powerful of its kind; but the proof that the circumference is 3.14159265... times the diameter is of a higher kind, being absolute mathematical demonstration.

The Zetetic system still lives in lectures and books; as it ought to do, for there is no way of teaching a truth comparable to opposition. The last I heard of it was in lectures at Plymouth, in October, 1864. Since this time a prospectus has been issued of a work entitled "The Earth not a Globe"; but whether it has been published I do not know. The contents are as follows:

"The Earth a Plane—How circumnavigated.—How time is lost or gained.—Why a ship's hull disappears (when outward bound) before the mast head.—Why the Polar Star sets when we proceed Southward, etc.—Why a pendulum vibrates with less velocity at the Equator thanat the Pole.—The allowance for rotunditysupposedto be made by surveyors, not made in practice.—Measurement of Arcs of the Meridian unsatisfactory.—Degrees of Longitude North and South of the Equator considered.—Eclipses and Earth's form considered.—The Earth no motion on axis or in orbit.—How the Sun moves above the Earth's surface concentric with the North Pole.—Cause of Day and Night, Winter and Summer; the long alternation of light and darkness at the Pole.—Cause of the Sun rising and setting.—Distance of the Sun from London, 4,028 miles—How measured.—Challenge to Mathematicians.—Cause of Tides.—Moon self-luminous, NOT a reflector.—Cause of Solar and Lunar eclipses.—Starsnot worlds; their distance.—Earth, theonly materialworld; its true position in the universe; its condition and ultimate destruction by fire (2 Peter iii.), etc."

I wish there were geoplatylogical lectures in every town; in England (platylogical, in composition, need not meanbabbling). The late Mr. Henry Archer[185]would, if alive, be very much obliged to me for recording his vehement denial of the roundness of the earth: he was excited if he heard any one call it a globe. I cannot produce his proof from the Pyramids, and from some caves in Arabia. He had other curious notions, of course: I should no more believe that a flat earth was a man's only paradox, than I should that Dutens,[186]the editor of Leibnitz, was eccentric only in supplying a tooth which he had lost by one which he found in an Italian tomb, and fully believed that it had once belonged to Scipio Africanus, whose family vault was discovered, it is supposed, in 1780. Mr. Archer is of note asthe suggester of the perforated border of the postage-stamps, and, I think, of the way of doing it; for this he got 4000l.reward. He was a civil engineer.

(August 28, 1865.) TheZetetic Astronomyhas come into my hands. When, in 1851, I went to see the Great Exhibition, I heard an organ played by a performer who seemed very desirous to exhibit one particular stop. "What do you think of that stop?" I was asked.—"That depends on the name of it," said I.—"Oh! what can the name have to do with the sound? 'that which we call a rose,' etc."—"The name has everything to do with it: if it be a flute-stop, I think it very harsh; but if it be a railway-whistle-stop, I think it very sweet." So as to this book: if it be childish, it is clever; if it be mannish, it is unusually foolish. The flat earth, floating tremulously on the sea; the sun moving always over the flat, giving day when near enough, and night when too far off; the self-luminous moon, with a semi-transparent invisible moon, created to give her an eclipse now and then; the new law of perspective, by which the vanishing of the hull before the masts, usually thought to prove the earth globular, really proves it flat;—all these and other things are well fitted to form exercises for a person who is learning the elements of astronomy. The manner in which the sun dips into the sea, especially in tropical climates, upsets the whole. Mungo Park,[187]I think, gives an African hypothesis which explains phenomena better than this. The sun dips into the western ocean, and the people there cut him in pieces, fry him in a pan, and then join him together again, take him round the underway, and set him up in the east. I hope this book will be read, and that many will be puzzled by it: for there are many whose notions of astronomy deserve no better fate. There is no subject on which there is so littleaccurate conception as that of the motions of the heavenly bodies. The author, though confident in the extreme, neither impeaches the honesty of those whose opinions he assails, nor allots them any future inconvenience: in these points he is worthy to live on a globe, and to revolve in twenty-four hours.

(October, 1866.) A follower appears, in a work dedicated to the preceding author: it isTheoretical Astronomy examined and exposed by Common Sense. The author has 128 well-stuffed octavo pages. I hope he will not be the last. He prints the newspaper accounts of his work: theChurch Timessays—not seeing how the satire might be retorted—"We never began to despair of Scripture until we discovered that 'Common Sense' had taken up the cudgels in its defence." This paper considers our author as the type of aProtestant. The author himself, who gives a summary of his arguments in verse, has one couplet which is worth quoting:

"How is't that sailors, bound to sea, witha 'globe'would never start,But in its place will always takeMercator's[188]Levelchart!"

"How is't that sailors, bound to sea, witha 'globe'would never start,

But in its place will always takeMercator's[188]Levelchart!"

To which I answer:

Why, really Mr. Common Sense, you've never got so farAs to think Mercator's planisphere shows countries as they are;It won't do to measure distances; it points out how to steer,But this distortion's not for you; another is, I fear.The earth must be a cylinder, if seaman's charts be true,Or else the boundaries, right and left, are one as well as two;They contradict the notion that we dwell upon a plain,For straight away, without a turn, will bring you home again.There are various plane projections; and each one has its use:I wish a milder word would rhyme—but really you're a goose!

Why, really Mr. Common Sense, you've never got so far

As to think Mercator's planisphere shows countries as they are;

It won't do to measure distances; it points out how to steer,

But this distortion's not for you; another is, I fear.

The earth must be a cylinder, if seaman's charts be true,

Or else the boundaries, right and left, are one as well as two;

They contradict the notion that we dwell upon a plain,

For straight away, without a turn, will bring you home again.

There are various plane projections; and each one has its use:

I wish a milder word would rhyme—but really you're a goose!

The great wish of persons who expose themselves as above, is to be argued with, and to be treated as reputableand refutable opponents. "Common Sense" reminds us that no amount of "blatant ridicule" will turn right into wrong. He is perfectly correct: but then no amount of bad argument will turn wrong into right. These two things balance; and we are just where we were: but you should answer our arguments, for whom, I ask? Would reason convince this kind of reasoner? The issue is a short and a clear one. If these parties be what I contend they are, then ridicule is made for them: if not, for what or for whom? If they be right, they are only passing through the appointed trial of all good things. Appeal is made to the future: and my Budget is intended to show samples of the long line of heroes who have fallen without victory, each of whom had his day of confidence and his prophecy of success. Let the future decide: they say roundly that the earth is flat; I say flatly that it is round.

The paradoxers all want reason, and not ridicule: they are all accessible, and would yield to conviction. Well then, let them reason with one another! They divide into squads, each with a subject, and as many different opinions as persons in each squad. If they be really what they say they are, the true man of each set can put down all the rest, and can come crowned with glory and girdled with scalps, to the attack on the orthodox misbelievers. But they know, to a man, that the rest are not fit to be reasoned with: they pay the regulars the compliment of believing that the only chance lies with them. They think in their hearts, each one for himself, that ridicule is of fit appliance to the rest.

Miranda. A book divided into three parts, entitled Souls, Numbers, Stars, on the Neo-Christian Religion ... Vol. i. London, 1858, 1859, 1860. 8vo.

The name of the author is Filopanti.[189]He announces himself as the 49th and last Emanuel: his immediatepredecessors were Emanuel Washington, Emanuel Newton, and Emanuel Galileo. He is to collect nations into one family. He knows the transmigrations of the whole human race. Thus Descartes became William III of England: Roger Bacon became Boccaccio. But Charles IX,[190]in retribution for the massacre of St. Bartholomew, was hanged in London under the name of Barthélemy for the murder of Collard: and many of the Protestants whom he killed as King of France were shouting at his death before the Old Bailey.

THE SABBATH—THE GREAT PYRAMID

A Letter to the members of the Anglo-Biblical Institute, dated Sept. 7, 1858, and signed 'Herman Heinfetter.'[191](Broadsheet.)

This gentleman is well known to the readers of theAthenæum, in which, for nearly twenty years, he has inserted, as advertisements, long arguments in favor of Christians keeping the Jewish Sabbath, beginning on Friday Evening. The present letter maintains that, by the force of the definite article, thedaysof creation may not be consecutive, but may have any time—millions of years—between them. This ingenious way of reconciling the author of Genesis and the indications of geology is worthy to be added to the list, already pretty numerous. Mr. Heinfetter has taken such pains to make himself a public agitator, thatI do not feel it to be any invasion of private life if I state that I have heard he is a large corn-dealer. No doubt he is a member of the congregation whose almanac has already been described.

The great Pyramid. Why was it built? And who built it? By John Taylor, 1859,[192]12mo.

This work is very learned, and may be referred to for the history of previous speculations. It professes to connect the dimensions of the Pyramid with a system of metrology which is supposed to have left strong traces in the systems of modern times; showing the Egyptians to have had good approximate knowledge of the dimensions of the earth, and of the quadrature of the circle. These are points on which coincidence is hard to distinguish from intention. Sir John Herschel[193]noticed this work, and gave several coincidences, in theAthenæum, Nos. 1696 and 1697, April 28 and May 5, 1860: and there are some remarks by Mr. Taylor in No. 1701, June 2, 1860.

Mr. Taylor's most recent publication is—

The battle of the Standards: the ancient, of four thousand years, against the modern, of the last fifty years—the less perfect of the two. London, 1864, 12mo.

This is intended as an appendix to the work on the Pyramid. Mr. Taylor distinctly attributes the original system to revelation, of which he says the Great Pyramid is the record. We are advancing, he remarks, towards the end of the Christian dispensation, and he adds that it is satisfactory to see that we retain the standards which were given by unwritten revelation 700 years before Moses. This is lighting the candle at both ends; for myself, I shall not undertake to deny or affirm either what is said about the dark past or what is hinted about the dark future.

My old friend Mr. Taylor is well known as the author of the argument which has convinced many, even most, that Sir Philip Francis[194]was Junius: pamphlet, 1813; supplement, 1817; second edition "The Identity of Junius with a distinguished living character established," London, 1818, 8vo. He told me that Sir Philip Francis, in a short conversation with him, made only this remark, "You may depend upon it you are quite mistaken:" the phrase appears to me remarkable; it has an air of criticism on the book, free from all personal denial. He also mentioned that a hearer told him that Sir Philip said, speaking of writers on the question,—"Those fellows, for half-a-crown, would prove that Jesus Christ was Junius."

Mr. Taylor implies, I think, that he is the first who started the suggestion that Sir Philip Francis was Junius, which I have no means either of confirming or refuting. If it be so [and I now know that Mr. Taylor himself never heard of any predecessor], the circumstance is very remarkable: it is seldom indeed that the first proposer of any solution of a great and vexed question is the person who so nearly establishes his point in general opinion as Mr. Taylor has done.

As to the Junius question in general, there is a little bit of the philosophy of horse-racing which may be usefully applied. A man who is so confident of his horse that he places him far above any other, may nevertheless, and does, refuse to give odds against all in the field: for many small adverse chances united make a big chance for one or other of the opponents. I suspect Mr. Taylor has made it at least 20 to 1 for Francis against any one competitor who has been named: but what the odds may be against thewhole field is more difficult to settle. What if the real Junius should be some person not yet named?

Mr. Jopling,Leisure Hour, May 23, 1863, relies on the porphyry coffer of the Great Pyramid, in which he finds "the most ancient and accurate standard of measure in existence."

I am shocked at being obliged to place a thoughtful and learned writer, and an old friend, before such a successor as he here meets with. But chronological arrangement defies all other arrangement.

(I had hoped that the preceding account would have met Mr. Taylor's eye in print: but he died during the last summer. For a man of a very thoughtful and quiet temperament, he had a curious turn for vexed questions. But he reflected very long and very patiently before he published: and all his works are valuable for their accurate learning, whichever side the reader may take.)

MRS. ELIZABETH COTTLE.

1859.The Cottle Church.—For more than twenty years printed papers have been sent about in the name of Elizabeth Cottle.[195]It is not so remarkable that such papers should be concocted as that they should circulate for such a length of time without attracting public attention. Eighty years ago Mrs. Cottle might have rivalled Lieut. Brothers or Joanna Southcott.[196]Long hence, when the now current volumes of our journals are well-ransacked works of reference, those who look into them will be glad to see thisfeature of our time: I therefore make a few extracts, faithfully copied as to type. The Italic is from the New Testament; the Roman is the requisite interpretation:

"Robert Cottle 'was numbered(5196)with the transgressors' at the back of the Church in Norwood Cemetery, May 12, 1858—Isa. liii. 12. The Rev. J. G. Collinson, Minister of St. James's Church, Chapham, the then district church, before All Saints was built, read the funeral serviceover the Sepulchre wherein never before man was laid.

"Hewn on the stone, 'at the mouth of the Sepulchre,' is his name,—Robert Cottle, born at Bristol, June 2, 1774; died at Kirkstall Lodge, Clapham Park, May 6, 1858.And that day(May 12, 1858)was the preparation(day and year for 'thePREPAREDplace for you'—Cottleites—-by the widowed mother of the Father's house, at Kirkstall Lodge—John xiv. 2, 3).And the Sabbath(Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 1859)drew on(for the resurrection of the Christian body on 'the third [Protestant Sun]-day'—1 Cor. xv. 35).Why seek ye the living(God of the New Jerusalem—Heb. xii. 22; Rev. iii. 12)among the dead(men):he(the God of Jesus)is not here(in the grave),but is risen(in the person of the Holy Ghost, from the supper of 'the dead in the second death' of Paganism).Remember how he spake unto you(in the church of the Rev. George Clayton,[197]April 14, 1839).I will not drink henceforth(at this last Cottle supper)of the fruit of this(Trinity)vine, until that day(Christmas Day, 1859),when I(Elizabeth Cottle)drink it new with you(Cottleites)in my Father's kingdom—John xv.If this(Trinitarian)cup may not pass away from me(Elizabeth Cottle, April 14, 1839),except I drink it('new with you Cottleites, in my Father's Kingdom'),thy will be done—Matt. xxvi. 29, 42, 64. 'Our Father which art (God) in Heaven,'hallowed be thy name, thy(Cottle)kingdomcome, thy will be done in earth, as it is(done)in(the new)Heaven(and new earth of the new name of Cottle—Rev. xxi. 1; iii. 12).

"... Queen Elizabeth, from A.D. 1558 to 1566.And thisWORDyet once more(by a second Elizabeth—theWORDof his oath)signifieth(at John Scott's baptism of the Holy Ghost)the removing of those things(those Gods and those doctrines)that are made(according to the Creeds and Commandments of men)that those things(in the moral law of God)which cannot be shaken(as a rule of faith and practice)may remain, wherefore we receiving(from Elizabeth)a kingdom(of God,)which cannot be moved(by Satan)let us have grace(in his Grace of Canterbury)whereby we may serve God acceptably(with the acceptable sacrifice of Elizabeth's body and blood of the communion of the Holy Ghost)with reverence(for truth)and godly fear(of the unpardonable sin of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost)for our God(the Holy Ghost)is a consuming fire(to the nation that will not serve him in the Cottle Church). We cannot defend ourselves against the Almighty, and if He is our defence, no nation can invade us.

"In verse 4 the Church of St. Peter isin prison between four quaternions of soldiers—the Holy Alliance of 1815. Rev. vii. i. Elizabeth,the Angel of the LordJesusappearsto the Jewish and Christian body withthe visionof prophecy to the Rev. Geo. Clayton and his clerical brethren, April 8th, 1839.Rhodawas the name of her maid at Putney Terrace who usedto open the door to her Peter, the Rev. Robert Ashton,[198]the Pastor of 'the little flock' 'of 120 names together, assembled in an upper (school) room' at Putney Chapel, to which little flock she gave the revelation (Acts. i. 13, 15)of Jesus the sameKing of the Jewsyesterdayat the prayer meeting, Dec. 31, 1841,and to-day,Jan. 1, 1842,and for ever. See book of Life, page 24. Matt. xviii. 19, xxi. 13-16. In verse 6 the Italian body of St. Peteris sleeping'in the second death'between the twoImperialsoldiersof France and Austria. The Emperor of France from Jan. 1, to July 11, 1859, causes the Italianchains of St. Peter to fall off from hisImperialhands.

"I say unto thee, Robert Ashton,thou art Peter, a stone,and upon this rock, of truth,will IElizabeth, the angel of Jesus,build myCottleChurch, and the gates of hell, the doors of St. Peter, at Rome, shall not prevail against it—Matt. xvi. 18. Rev. iii. 7-12."

This will be enough for the purpose. When any one who pleases can circulate new revelations of this kind, uninterrupted and unattended to, new revelations will cease to be a good investment of excentricity. I take it for granted that the gentlemen whose names are mentioned have nothing to do with the circulars or their doctrines. Any lady who may happen to be intrusted with a revelation may nominate her own pastor, or any other clergyman, one of her apostles; and it is difficult to say to what court the nominees can appeal to get the commission abrogated.

March 16, 1865.During the last two years the circulars have continued. It is hinted that funds are low: and two gentlemen who are represented as gone "to Bethlehem asylum in despair" say that Mrs. Cottle "will spend all that she hath, while Her Majesty's Ministers are flourishing on the wages of sin." The following is perhaps one of the most remarkable passages in the whole:

"Extol and magnify Him(Jehovah, the Everlasting God, see the Magnificat and Luke i. 45, 46—68—73—79),that rideth(by rail and steam over land and sea, from his holy habitation at Kirkstall Lodge, Psa. lxxvii. 19, 20),upon the(Cottle)heavens, as it were(Sept. 9, 1864, see pages 21, 170),upon an(exercising, Psa. cxxxi. 1),horse-(chair, bought of Mr. John Ward, Leicester-square)."

I have pretty good evidence that there is a clergyman who thinks Mrs. Cottle a very sensible woman.

[The Cottle Church.Had I chanced to light upon it at the time of writing, I should certainly have given the following. A printed letter to theWestern Times, by Mr. Robert Cottle, was accompanied by a manuscript letter from Mrs. Cottle, apparently a circular. The date was Novr. 1853, and the subject was the procedure against Mr. Maurice[199]at King's College for doubting that God would punish human sins by an existence of torture lasting through years numbered by millions of millions of millions of millions (repeat the wordmillionswithout end,) etc. The memory of Mr. Cottle has, I think, a right to the quotation: he seems to have been no participator in the notions of his wife:

"The clergy of the Established Church, taken at the round number of 20,000, may, in their first estate, be likened to 20,000 gold blanks, destined to become sovereigns, in succession,—they are placed between the matrix of the Mint, when, by the pressure of the screw, they receive the impress that fits them to become part of the current coin of the realm. In a way somewhat analogous this great body of the clergy have each passed through the crucibles of Oxford and Cambridge,—have been assayed by the Bishop's chaplain, touching the health of their souls, and the validity of their call by the Divine Spirit, and then the gentle pressure of a prelate's hand upon their heads; and the words—'Receive the Holy Ghost,' have, in a brief space of time, wrought achange in them, much akin to the miracle of transubstantiation—the priests are completed, and they become the current ecclesiastical coin of our country. The whole body of clergy, here spoken of, have undergone the preliminary induction of baptism and confirmation; and all have been duly ordained,professingto hold one faith, and to believe in the selfsame doctrines! In short, to be as identical as the 20,000 sovereigns, if compared one with the other. But mind is not malleable and ductile, like gold; and all the preparations of tests, creeds, and catechisms will not insure uniformity of belief. No stamp of orthodoxy will produce the same impress on the minds of different men. Variety is manifest, and patent, upon everything mental and material. The Almighty has not created, nor man fashioned, two things alike! How futile, then, is the attempt to shape and mould man's apprehension of divine truth by one fallible standard of man's invention! If proof of this be required, an appeal might be made to history and the experience of eighteen hundred years."

This is an argument of force against the reasonableness of expecting tens of thousands of educated readers of the New Testament to find the doctrine above described in it. The lady's argument against the doctrine itself is very striking. Speaking of an outcry on this matter among the Dissenters against one of their body, who was the son of "the White Stone (Rev. ii. 17), or the Roman cement-maker," she says—

"If the doctrine for which they so wickedly fight were true, what would become of the black gentlemen for whose redemption I have been sacrificed from April 8 1839."

There are certainly very curious points about this revelation. There have been many surmises about the final restoration of the infernal spirits, from the earliest ages of Christianity until our own day: a collection of them would be worth making. On reading this in proof, I see a possibility that by "black gentlemen" may be meant the clergy:I suppose my first interpretation must have been suggested by context: I leave the point to the reader's sagacity.]

JAMES SMITH, ARCH-PARADOXER.

The Problem of squaring the circle solved; or, the circumference and area of the circle discovered. By James Smith.[200]London, 1859, 8vo.On the relations of a square inscribed in a circle. Read at the British Association, Sept. 1859, published in the Liverpool Courier, Oct. 8, 1859, and reprinted in broadsheet.The question: Are there any commensurable relations between a circle and other Geometrical figures? Answered by a member of the British Association ... London, 1860, 8vo.—[This has been translated into French by M. Armand Grange, Bordeaux, 1863, 8vo.]The Quadrature of the Circle. Correspondence between an eminent mathematician and James Smith, Esq. (Member of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board), London, 1861, 8vo. (pp. 200).Letter to the ... British Association ... by James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1861, 8vo.Letter to the ... British Association ... by James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1862, 8vo.—[These letters the author promised to continue.]A Nut to crack for the readers of Professor De Morgan's 'Budget of Paradoxes.' By James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1863, 8vo.Paper read at the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, reported in the Liverpool Daily Courier, Jan. 26, 1864. Reprinted as a pamphlet.The Quadrature of the circle, or the true ratio between the diameter and circumference geometrically and mathematically demonstrated. By James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1865, 8vo.[On the relations between the dimensions and distances of the Sun, Moon, and Earth; a paper read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, Jan. 25, 1864. By James Smith, Esq.The British Association in Jeopardy, and Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity, in the stocks without hope of escape. Printed for the authors (J. S. confessed, and also hidden underNauticus). (No date, 1865).The British Association in Jeopardy, and Professor De Morgan in the Pillory without hope of escape. London, 1866, 8vo.]

The Problem of squaring the circle solved; or, the circumference and area of the circle discovered. By James Smith.[200]London, 1859, 8vo.

On the relations of a square inscribed in a circle. Read at the British Association, Sept. 1859, published in the Liverpool Courier, Oct. 8, 1859, and reprinted in broadsheet.

The question: Are there any commensurable relations between a circle and other Geometrical figures? Answered by a member of the British Association ... London, 1860, 8vo.—[This has been translated into French by M. Armand Grange, Bordeaux, 1863, 8vo.]

The Quadrature of the Circle. Correspondence between an eminent mathematician and James Smith, Esq. (Member of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board), London, 1861, 8vo. (pp. 200).

Letter to the ... British Association ... by James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1861, 8vo.

Letter to the ... British Association ... by James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1862, 8vo.—[These letters the author promised to continue.]

A Nut to crack for the readers of Professor De Morgan's 'Budget of Paradoxes.' By James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1863, 8vo.

Paper read at the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society, reported in the Liverpool Daily Courier, Jan. 26, 1864. Reprinted as a pamphlet.

The Quadrature of the circle, or the true ratio between the diameter and circumference geometrically and mathematically demonstrated. By James Smith, Esq. Liverpool, 1865, 8vo.

[On the relations between the dimensions and distances of the Sun, Moon, and Earth; a paper read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, Jan. 25, 1864. By James Smith, Esq.

The British Association in Jeopardy, and Dr. Whewell, the Master of Trinity, in the stocks without hope of escape. Printed for the authors (J. S. confessed, and also hidden underNauticus). (No date, 1865).

The British Association in Jeopardy, and Professor De Morgan in the Pillory without hope of escape. London, 1866, 8vo.]

When my work appeared in numbers, I had not anything like an adequate idea of Mr. James Smith's superiority to the rest of the world in the points in which he is superior. He is beyond a doubt the ablest head at unreasoning, and the greatest hand at writing it, of all who have tried in our day to attach their names to an error. Common cyclometers sink into puny orthodoxy by his side.

The behavior of this singular character induces me to pay him the compliment which Achilles paid Hector, to drag him round the walls again and again. He was treated with unusual notice and in the most gentle manner. The unnamed mathematician, E. M. bestowed a volume of mild correspondence upon him; Rowan Hamilton[201]quietly proved him wrong in a way accessible to an ordinary schoolboy; Whewell,[202]as we shall see, gave him the means of seeing himself wrong, even more easily than by Hamilton's method. Nothing would do; it was small kick and silly fling at all; and he exposed his conceit by alleging that he, James Smith, had placed Whewell in the stocks. He will therefore be universally pronounced a proper object of the severest literary punishment: but the opinion of all who can put two propositions together will be that of the many strokes I have given, the hardest and most telling are my republications of his own attempts to reason.

He will come out of my hands in the position he oughtto hold, the Supreme Pontiff of cyclometers, the vicegerent of St. Vitus upon earth, the Mamamouchi of burlesque on inference. I begin with a review of him which appeared in theAthenæumof May 11, 1861. Mr. Smith says I wrote it: this I neither affirm nor deny; to do either would be a sin against the editorial system elsewhere described. Many persons tell me they know me by my style; let them form a guess: I can only say that many have declared as above while fastening on me something which I had never seen nor heard of.

The Quadrature of the Circle: Correspondence between an Eminent Mathematician and James Smith, Esq. (Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd; London, Simpkin, Marshall & Co.)

"A few weeks ago we were in perpetual motion. We did not then suppose that anything would tempt us on a circle-squaring expedition: but the circumstances of the book above named have a peculiarity which induces us to give it a few words.

"Mr. James Smith, a gentleman residing near Liverpool, was some years ago seized with themorbus cyclometricus.[203]The symptoms soon took a defined form: his circumference shrank into exactly 3-1/8 times his diameter, instead of close to 3-16/113, which the mathematician knows to be so near to truth that the error is hardly at the rate of a foot in 2,000 miles. This shrinking of the circumference remained until it became absolutely necessary that it should be examined by the British Association. This body, which as Mr. James Smith found to his sorrow, has some interest in 'jealously guarding the mysteries of their profession,' refused at first to entertain the question. On this Mr. Smith changed his 'tactics' and the name of his paper, and smuggled in the subject under the form of 'The Relations of a Circle inscribed in a Square'! The paper was thus forced upon the Association, for Mr. Smith informs us that he'gave the Section to understand that he was not the man that would permit even the British Association to trifle with him.' In other words, the Association bore with and were bored with the paper, as the shortest way out of the matter. Mr. Smith also circulated a pamphlet. Some kind-hearted man, who did not know the disorder as well as we do, and who appears in Mr. Smith's handsome octavo as E. M.—the initials of 'eminent mathematician'—wrote to him and offered to show him in a page that he was all wrong. Mr. Smith thereupon opened a correspondence, which is the bulk of the volume. When the correspondence was far advanced, Mr. Smith announced his intention to publish. His benevolent instructor—we mean in intention—protested against the publication, saying 'I do not wish to be gibbeted to the world as having been foolish enough to enter upon what I feel now to have been a ridiculous enterprise.'

"For this Mr. Smith cared nothing: he persisted in the publication, and the book is before us. Mr. Smith has had so much grace as to conceal his kind adviser's name under E. M., that is to say, he has divided the wrong among all who may be suspected of having attempted so hopeless a task as that of putting a little sense into his head. He has violated the decencies of private life. Against the will of the kind-hearted man who undertook his case, he has published letters which were intended for no other purpose than to clear his poor head of a hopeless delusion. He deserves the severest castigation; and he will get it: his abuse of confidence will stick by him all his days. Not that he has done his benefactor—in intention, again—any harm. The patience with which E. M. put the blunders into intelligible form, and the perseverance with which he tried to find a cranny-hole for common reasoning to get in at, are more than respectable: they are admirable. It is, we can assure E. M., a good thing that the nature of the circle-squarer should be so completely exposed as in this volume. The benefit which he intended Mr. James Smith may beconferred upon others. And we should very much like to know his name, and if agreeable to him, to publish it. As to Mr. James Smith, we can only say this: he is not mad. Madmen reason rightly upon wrong premises: Mr. Smith reasons wrongly upon no premises at all.

"E. M. very soon found out that, to all appearance, Mr. Smith got a circle of 3-1/8 times the diameter by making it the supposition to set out with that there was such a circle; and then finding certain consequences which, so it happened, were not inconsistent with the supposition on which they were made. Error is sometimes self-consistent. However, E. M., to be quite sure of his ground, wrote a short letter, stating what he took to be Mr. Smith's hypothesis, containing the following: 'On AC as diameter, describe the circle D, which by hypothesis shall be equal to three and one-eighth times the length of AC.... I beg, before proceeding further, to ask whether I have rightly stated your argument.' To which Mr. Smith replied: 'You have stated my argument with perfect accuracy.' Still E. M. went on, and we could not help, after the above, taking these letters as the initials of Everlasting Mercy. At last, however, when Mr. Smith flatly denied that the area of the circle lies between those of the inscribed and circumscribed polygons, E. M. was fairly beaten, and gave up the task. Mr. Smith was left to write his preface, to talk about the certain victory of truth—which, oddly enough, is the consolation of all hopelessly mistaken men; to compare himself with Galileo; and to expose to the world the perverse behavior of the Astronomer Royal, on whom he wanted to fasten a conversation, and who replied, 'It would be a waste of time, Sir, to listen to anything you could have to say on such a subject.'

"Having thus disposed of Mr. James Smith, we proceed to a few remarks on the subject: it is one which a journal would never originate, but which is rendered necessary from time to time by the attempts of the autopseustic to becomeheteropseustic. To the mathematician we have nothing to say: the question is, what kind of assurance can be given to the world at large that the wicked mathematicians are not acting in concert to keep down their superior, Mr. James Smith, the current Galileo of the quadrature of the circle.

"Let us first observe that this question does not stand alone: independently of the millions of similar problems which exist in higher mathematics, the finding of the diagonal of a square has just the same difficulty, namely, the entrance of a pair of lines of which one cannot be definitely expressed by means of the other. We will show the reader who is up to the multiplication-table how he may go on, on, on, ever nearer, never there, in finding the diagonal of a square from the side.

"Write down the following rows of figures, and more, if you like, in the way described:

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