"'Tis strange—the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,'The English always use to govern d——n."
"'Tis strange—the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,'The English always use to govern d——n."
"'Tis strange—the Hebrew noun which means 'I am,'
The English always use to govern d——n."
Hone ends with: "Lord Byron's dedication of 'Don Juan' to Lord Castlereagh was suppressed by Mr. Murray from delicacy to Ministers. Q. Why did not Mr. Murray suppress Lord Byron'sparodyon the Ten Commandments?A.Because it contains nothing in ridicule of Ministers, and therefore nothing thattheycould suppose would lead to the displeasure of Almighty God."
The little matters on which I have dwelt will never appear in history from their political importance, except in a few words of result. As a mode of thought, silly evasions of all kinds belong to such a work as the present. Ignorance, which seats itself in the chair of knowledge, is a mother of revolutions in politics, and of unread pamphlets in circle-squaring. From 1815 to 1830 the question of revolution or no revolution lurked in all our English discussions. The high classes must govern; the high classes shall not govern; and thereupon issue was to be joined. In 1828-33 the question came to issue; and it was, Revolution with or without civil war; choose. The choice was wisely made; and the Reform Bill started a new system so well dovetailed into the old that the joinings are hardly visible. And now, in 1867, the thing is repeated with a marked subsidence of symptoms; and the party which has taken the place of the extinct Tories is carrying through Parliament a wider extension of the franchise than their opponents would have ventured. Napoleon used to say that a decided nose was a sign of power: on which it has been remarked that he had good reason to say so before the play was done. And so had our country; it was saved from a religious war, and from a civil war, by the power of that nose over its colleagues.
THOMAS TAYLOR, THE PLATONIST.
The Commentaries of Proclus.[420]Translated by Thomas Taylor.[421]London, 1792, 2 vols. 4to.[422]
The Commentaries of Proclus.[420]Translated by Thomas Taylor.[421]London, 1792, 2 vols. 4to.[422]
The reputation of "the Platonist" begins to grow, and will continue to grow. The most authentic account is in thePenny Cyclopædia, written by one of the few persons who knew him well, and one of the fewer who possess all his works. At page lvi of the Introduction is Taylor's notion of the way to find the circumference. It is not geometrical, for it proceeds on the motion of a point: the words "on account of the simplicity of the impulsive motion, such a line must be either straight or circular" will suffice to show how Platonic it is. Taylor certainly professed a kind of heathenism. D'lsraeli said, "Mr. T. Taylor, the Platonic philosopher and the modern Plethon,[423]consonant to that philosophy, professes polytheism." Taylor printed this in large type, in a page by itself after the dedication, without any disavowal. I have seen the following, Greek and translation both, in his handwriting: "Πᾶς ἀγαθὸς ᾗ ἀγαθὸς ἐθνικός· καὶ πᾶς χριστιανὸς ᾗ χριστιανὸς κακός.Every good man, so far as he is a good man, is a heathen; and every Christian, so far as he is a Christian, is a bad man." Whether Taylor had in his head the Christian of the New Testament, or whether he drew from those members of the "religious world" who make manifest the religious flesh and the religious devil,cannot be decided by us, and perhaps was not known to himself. If a heathen, he was a virtuous one.
A NEW ERA IN FICTION.
(1795.) This is the date of a very remarkable paradox. The religious world—to use a name claimed by a doctrinal sect—had long set its face against amusing literature, and all works of imagination. Bunyan, Milton, and a few others were irresistible; but a long face was pulled at every attempt to produce something readable for poor people andpoor children. In 1795, a benevolent association began to circulate the works of a lady who had been herself a dramatist, and had nourished a pleasant vein of satire in the society of Garrick and his friends; all which is carefully suppressed in some biographies. Hannah More's[424]Cheap Repository Tracts,[425]which were bought by millions of copies, destroyed the vicious publications with which the hawkers deluged the country, by the simple process of furnishing the hawkers with something more saleable.
Dramatic fiction, in which thecharactersare drawn by themselves, was, at the middle of the last century, the monopoly of writers who required indecorum, such as Fielding and Smollett. All, or nearly all, which could be permitted to the young, was dry narrative, written by people who could not make their personagestalk character; they all spokealike. The author of theRambler[426]is ridiculed, because his young ladies talk Johnsonese; but the satirists forget that all the presentable novel-writers were equally incompetent; even the author ofZeluco(1789)[427]is the strongest possible case in point.
Dr. Moore,[428]the father of the hero of Corunna,[429]with good narrative power, some sly humor, and much observation of character, would have been, in our day, a writer of thePeacock[430]family. Nevertheless, to one who is accustomed to our style of things, it is comic to read the dialogue of a jealous husband, a suspected wife, a faithless maid-servant, a tool of a nurse, a wrong-headed pomposity of a priest, and a sensible physician, all talking Dr. Moore through their masks. Certainly an Irish soldier does say "by Jasus," and a cockney footman "this here" and "that there"; and this and the like is all the painting of characters which is effected out of the mouths of the bearers by a narrator of great power. I suspect that some novelists repressed their power under a rule that a narrative should narrate, and that the dramatic should be confined to the drama.
I make no exception in favor of Miss Burney;[431]though she was the forerunner of a new era. Suppose a countryin which dress is always of one color; suppose an importer who brings in cargoes of blue stuff, red stuff, green stuff, etc., and exhibits dresses of these several colors, that person is the similitude of Miss Burney. It would be a delightful change from a universal dull brown, to see one person all red, another all blue, etc.; but the real inventor of pleasant dress would be the one who could mix his colors and keep down the bright and gaudy. Miss Burney's introduction was so charming, by contrast, that she nailed such men as Johnson, Burke, Garrick, etc., to her books. But when a person who has read them with keen pleasure in boyhood, as I did, comes back to them after a long period, during which he has made acquaintance with the great novelists of our century, three-quarters of the pleasure is replaced by wonder that he had not seen he was at a puppet-show, not at a drama. Take somelabeledcharacters out of our humorists, let them be put together into one piece, to speak only as labeled: let there be a Dominie with nothing but "Prodigious!" a Dick Swiveller with nothing but adapted quotations; a Dr. Folliott with nothing but sneers at Lord Brougham;[432]and the whole will pack up into one of Miss Burney's novels.
Maria Edgeworth,[433]Sydney Owenson (Lady Morgan),[434]Jane Austen,[435]Walter Scott,[436]etc., are all of our century; asare, I believe, all the Minerva Press novels, as they were called, which show some of the power in question. Perhaps dramatic talent found its best encouragement in the drama itself. But I cannot ascertain that any such power was directed at the multitude, whether educated or uneducated, with natural mixture of character, under the restraints of decorum, until the use of it by two religious writers of the school called "evangelical," Hannah More and Rowland Hill.[437]TheVillage Dialogues, though not equal to theRepository Tracts, are in many parts an approach, and perhaps a copy; there is frequently humorous satire, in that most effective form, self-display. They were published in 1800, and, partly at least, by the Religious Tract Society, the linealsuccessorof theRepositoryassociation, though knowing nothing about its predecessor. I think it right to add that Rowland Hill here mentioned is not the regenerator of the Post Office.[438]Some do not distinguish accurately; I have heard of more than one who took me to have had a logical controversy with a diplomatist who died some years before I was born.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
A few years ago, an attempt was made by myself and others to collect some information about theCheap Repository(seeNotes and Queries, 3d Series, vi. 241, 290, 353;Christian Observer, Dec. 1864, pp. 944-49). It appeared that after the Religious Tract Society had existed more than fifty years, a friend presented it with a copy of the original prospectus of theRepository, a thing the existence of which was not known. In this prospectus it is announced that from the plan "will be carefully excluded whatever is enthusiastic, absurd, or superstitious." The "evangelical"party had, from the foundation of the Religious Tract Society, regretted that theRepository Tracts"did not contain a fuller statement of the great evangelical principles"; while in the prospectus it is also stated that "no cause of any particular party is intended to be served by it, but general Christianity will be promoted upon practical principles." This explains what has often been noticed, that the tracts contain a mild form of "evangelical" doctrine, free from that more fervid dogmatism which appears in theVillage Dialogues; and such as H. More's friend, Bishop Porteus[439]—a great promoter of the scheme—might approve. The Religious Tract Society (in 1863) republished some of H. More's tracts, with alterations, additions, and omissionsad libitum. This is an improper way of dealing with the works of the dead; especially when the reprints are of popular works. A small type addition to the preface contains: "Some alterations and abridgements have been made to adapt them to the present times and the aim of the Religious Tract Society." I think every publicity ought to be given to the existence of such a practice; and I reprint what I said on the subject inNotes and Queries.
Alterations in works which the Society republishes are a necessary part of their plan, though such notes as they should judge to be corrective would be the best way of proceeding. But the fact of alteration should be very distinctly announced on the title of the work itself, not left to a little bit of small type at the end of the preface, in the place where trade advertisements, or directions to the binder, are often found. And the places in which alteration has been made should be pointed out, either by marks of omission, when omission is the alteration, or by putting the altered sentences in brackets, when change has been made. May any one alter the works of the dead at his own discretion?We all know that readers in general will take each sentence to be that of the author whose name is on the title; so that a correcting republishermakes use of his author's name to teach his own variation. The tortuous logic of "the trade," which is content when "the world" is satisfied, is not easily answered, any more than an eel is easily caught; but the Religious Tract Society may beconvinced[in the old sense] in a sentence. On which course would they feel most safe in giving their account to the God of truth? "In your own conscience, now?"
I have tracked out a good many of the variations made by the Religious Tract Society in the recently published volume ofRepository Tracts. Most of them are doctrinal insertions or amplifications, to the matter of which Hannah More would not have objected—all that can be brought against them is the want of notice. But I have found two which the respect I have for the Religious Tract Society, in spite of much difference on various points, must not prevent my designating as paltry. In the story of Mary Wood, a kind-hearted clergyman converses with the poor girl who has ruined herself by lying. In the original, he "assisted her in the great work of repentance;" in the reprint it is to be shown in some detail how he did this. He is to begin by pointing out that "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." Now the clergyman's name isHeartwell: so to prevent his name from contradicting his doctrine, he is actually cut down toHarwell. Hannah Moore meant this good man for one of those described in Acts xv. 8, 9, and his name was appropriate.
Again, Mr. Flatterwell, in persuasion of Parley the porter to let him into the castle, declares that the worst he will do is to "play an innocent game of cards just to keep you awake, or sing a cheerful song with the maids." Oh fie! Miss Hannah More! and you a single lady too, and a contemporary of the virtuous Bowdler![440]Though Flatterwell be anallegory of the devil, this is really too indecorous, even for him. Out with the three last words! and out it is.
The Society cuts a poor figure before a literary tribunal. Nothing was wanted except an admission that the remarks made by me were unanswerable, and this was immediately furnished by the Secretary (N. and Q., 3d S., vi. 290). In a reply of which six parts out of seven are a very amplified statement that the Society did not intend to reprintallHannah More's tracts, the remaining seventh is as follows:
"I am not careful [perhaps this should becareful not] to notice Professor De Morgan's objections to the changes in 'Mary Wood' or 'Parley the Porter,' but would merely reiterate that the tracts were neither designed nor announced to be 'reprints' of the originals [design is only known to the designers; as to announcement, the title is ''Tis all for the best, The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and other narratives by Hannah More']; and much less [this must becareful not; further removed from answer thannot careful] can I occupy your space by a treatise on the Professor's question: 'May any one alter the works of the dead at his own discretion?'"
To which I say: Thanks for help!
I predict that Hannah More'sCheap Repository Tractswill somewhat resemble thePilgrim's Progressin their fate. Written for the cottage, and long remaining in their original position, they will become classical works of their kind. Most assuredly this will happen if my assertion cannot be upset, namely, that they contain the first specimens of fiction addressed to the world at large, and widely circulated, in which dramatic—as distinguished from puppet—power is shown, and without indecorum.
According to some statements I have seen, but which I have not verified, other publishing bodies, such as the Christian Knowledge Society, have taken the same liberty with the names of the dead as the Religious Tract Society. If it be so, the impropriety is the work of the smaller spirits who have not been sufficiently overlooked. There must be an overwhelming majority in the higher councils to feel that, wheneveralteredworks are published,the fact of alteration should be made as prominent as the name of the author. Everything short of this is suppression of truth, and will ultimately destroy the credit of the Society. Equally necessary is it that the alterations should be noted. When it comes to be known that the author before him is altered, he knows not where nor how nor by whom, the lowest reader will lose his interest.
A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FREND.
The principles of Algebra. By William Frend.[441]London, 1796, 8vo. Second Part, 1799.
The principles of Algebra. By William Frend.[441]London, 1796, 8vo. Second Part, 1799.
This Algebra, says Dr. Peacock,[442]shows "great distrustof the results of algebraical science which were in existence at the time when it was written." Truly it does; for, as Dr. Peacock had shown by full citation, it makes war of extermination upon all that distinguishes algebra from arithmetic. Robert Simson[443]and Baron Maseres[444]were Mr. Frend's predecessors in this opinion.
The genuine respect which I entertained for my father-in-law did not prevent my canvassing with perfect freedom his anti-algebraical and anti-Newtonian opinions, in a long obituary memoir read at the Astronomical Society in February 1842, which was written by me. It was copied into theAthenæumof March 19. It must be said that if the manner in which algebrawaspresented to the learner had been true algebra, he would have been right: and if he had confined himself to protesting against the imposition of attraction as a fundamental part of the existence of matter, he would have been in unity with a great many, including Newton himself. I wish he had preferred amendment to rejection when he was a college tutor: he wrote and spoke English with a clearness which is seldom equaled.
His anti-Newtonian discussions are confined to the preliminary chapters of hisEvening Amusements,[445]a series of astronomical lessons in nineteen volumes, following the moon through a period of the golden numbers.
There is a mistake about him which can never be destroyed. It is constantly said that, at his celebrated trial in 1792, for sedition and opposition to the Liturgy, etc., he wasexpelledfrom the University. He wasbanished. People cannot see the difference; but it made all the difference toMr. Frend. He held his fellowship and its profits till his marriage in 1808, and was a member of the University and of its Senate till his death in 1841, as any Cambridge Calendar up to 1841 will show. That they would have expelled him if they could, is perfectly true; and there is a funny story—also perfectly true—about their first proceedings being under a statute which would have given the power, had it not been discovered during the proceedings that the statute did not exist. It had come so near to existence as to be entered into the Vice-Chancellor's book for his signature, which it wanted, as was not seen till Mr. Frend exposed it: in fact, the statute had never actually passed.
There is an absurd mistake in Gunning's[446]Reminiscences of Cambridge. In quoting a passage of Mr. Frend's pamphlet, which was very obnoxious to the existing Government, it is printed that the poor market-women complained that they were to bescotcheda quarter of their wages by taxation; and attention is called to the word by its being three times printed in italics. In the pamphlet it is "sconced"; that very common old word for fined or mulcted.
Lord Lyndhurst,[447]who has [1863] just passed away under a load of years and honors, was Mr. Frend's private pupil at Cambridge. At the time of the celebrated trial, he and two others amused themselves, and vented the feeling which was very strong among the undergraduates, by chalking the walls of Cambridge with "Frend for ever!" While thus engaged in what, using the term legally, we are probably to call his first publication, he and his friends were surprised by the proctors. Flight and chase followed of course: Copley and one of the others, Serjeant Rough,[448]escaped: thethird, whose name I forget, but who afterwards, I have been told was a bishop,[449]being lame, was captured and impositioned. Looking at the Cambridge Calendar to verify the fact that Copley was an undergraduate at the time, I find that there are but two other men in the list of honors of his year whose names are now widely remembered. And they were both celebrated schoolmasters; Butler[450]of Harrow, and Tate[451]of Richmond.
But Mr. Frend had another noted pupil. I once had a conversation with a very remarkable man, who was generally called "Place,[452]the tailor," but who was politician, political economist, etc., etc. He sat in the room above his shop—he was then a thriving master tailor at Charing Cross—surrounded by books enough for nine, to shame a proverb. The blue books alone, cut up into strips, would have measured Great Britain for oh-no-we-never-mention-'ems, the Highlands included. I cannot find a biography of this worthy and able man. I happened to mention William Frend, and he said, "Ah! my old master, as I always call him. Many and many a time, and year after year, did he come in everynow and then to give me instruction, while I was sitting on the board, working for my living, you know."
Place, who really was a sound economist, is joined with Cobbett, because they were together at one time, and because he was, in 1800, etc., a great Radical. But for Cobbett he had a great contempt. He told me the following story. He and others were advising with Cobbett about the defense he was to make on a trial for seditious libel which was coming on. Said Place, "You must put in the letters you have received from Ministers, members of the Commons from the Speaker downwards, etc., about your Register, and their wish to have subjects noted. You must then ask the jury whether a person so addressed must be considered as a common sower of sedition, etc. You will be acquitted; nay, if your intention should get about, very likely they will manage to stop proceedings." Cobbett was too much disturbed to listen; he walked about the room ejaculating "D—— the prison!" and the like. He had not the sense to follow the advice, and was convicted.
Cobbett, to go on with the chain, was a political acrobat, ready for any kind of posture. A friend of mine gave me several times an account of a mission to him. A Tory member—those who know the old Tory world may look for his initials in initials of two consecutive words of "Pay his money with interest"—who was, of course, a political opponent, thought Cobbett had been hardly used, and determined to subscribe handsomely towards the expenses he was incurring as a candidate. My friend was commissioned to hand over the money—a bag of sovereigns, that notes might not be traced. He went into Cobbett's committee-room, told the patriot his errand, and put the money on the table. "And to whom, sir, am I indebted?" said Cobbett. "The donor," was the answer, "is Mr. Andrew Theophilus Smith," or some such unlikely pair of baptismals. "Ah!" said Cobbett, "I have known Mr. A. T. S. a long time! he was always a true friend of his country!"
To return to Place. He is a noted instance of the advantage of our jury system, which never asks a man's politics, etc. The late King of Hanover, when Duke of Cumberland, being unpopular, was brought under unjust suspicions by the suicide of his valet: he must have seduced the wife and murdered the husband. The charges were as absurd as those brought against the Englishman in the Frenchman's attempt at satirical verses upon him:
"The Englishman is a very bad man;He drink the beer and he steal the can:He kiss the wife and he beat the man;And the Englishman is a very G—— d——."
"The Englishman is a very bad man;He drink the beer and he steal the can:He kiss the wife and he beat the man;And the Englishman is a very G—— d——."
"The Englishman is a very bad man;
He drink the beer and he steal the can:
He kiss the wife and he beat the man;
And the Englishman is a very G—— d——."
The charges were revived in a much later day, and the defense might have given some trouble. But Place, who had been the foreman at the inquest, came forward, and settled the question in a few lines. Every one knew that the old Radical was quite free of all disposition to suppress truth from wish to curry favor with royalty.
John Speed,[453]the author of theEnglish History,[454](1632) which Bishop Nicolson[455]calls the best chronicle extant, was a man, like Place, of no education, but what he gave himself. The bishop says he would have done better if he had a better training: but what, he adds, could have been expected from a tailor! This Speed was, as well as Place. But he wasreleased from manual labor by Sir Fulk Grevil,[456]who enabled him to study.
A STORY ON SIMSON.
I have elsewhere noticed that those who oppose the mysteries of algebra do not ridicule them; this I want the cyclometers to do. Of the three who wrote against the great point, the negative quantity, and the uses of 0 which are connected with it, only one could fire a squib. That Robert Simson[457]should do such a thing will be judged impossible by all who admit tradition. I do not vouch for the following; I give it as a proof of the impression which prevailed about him:
He used to sit at his open window on the ground floor, as deep in geometry as a Robert Simson ought to be. Here he would be accosted by beggars, to whom he generally gave a trifle, he roused himself to hear a few words of the story, made his donation, and instantly dropped down into his depths. Some wags one day stopped a mendicant who was on his way to the window with "Now, my man, do as we tell you, and you will get something from that gentleman, and a shilling from us besides. You will go and say you are in distress, he will ask you who you are, and you will say you are Robert Simson, son of John Simson of Kirktonhill." The man did as he was told; Simson quietly gave him a coin, and dropped off. The wags watched a little, and saw him rouse himself again, and exclaim "Robert Simson, son of John Simson of Kirktonhill! why, that is myself. That man must be an impostor." Lord Brougham tells the same story, with some difference of details.
BARON MASERES.
Baron Maseres[458]was, as a writer, dry; those who knew his writings will feel that he seldom could have taken in a joke or issued a pun. Maseres was the fourth wrangler of 1752, and first Chancellor's medallist (or highest in classics); his second was Porteus[459](afterward Bishop of London). Waring[460]came five years after him: he could not get Maseres through the second page of his first book on algebra; a negative quantity stood like a lion in the way. In 1758 he published hisDissertation on the Use of the Negative Sign,[461]4to. There are some who care little about + and -, who would give it house-room for the sake of the four words "Printed by Samuel Richardson."
Maseres speaks as follows: "A single quantity can never be marked with either of those signs, or considered as either affirmative or negative; for if any single quantity, asb, is marked either with the sign + or with the sign - without assigning some other quantity, asa, to which it is to be added, or from which it is to be subtracted, the mark will have no meaning or signification: thus if it be said that the square of -5, or the product of -5 into -5, is equal to +25, such an assertion must either signify no more than that 5 times 5 is equal to 25 without any regard to the signs, or it must be mere nonsense and unintelligible jargon. I speak according to the foregoing definition, by which the affirmativeness or negativeness of any quantity implies a relation to another quantity of the same kind to which itis added, or from which it is subtracted; for it may perhaps be very clear and intelligible to those who have formed to themselves some other idea of affirmative and negative quantities different from that above defined."
Nothing can be more correct, or more identically logical: +5 and -5, standing alone, are jargon if +5 and -5 are to be understood as without reference to another quantity. But those who have "formed to themselves some other idea" see meaning enough. The great difficulty of the opponents of algebra lay in want of power or will to see extension of terms. Maseres is right when he implies that extension, accompanied by its refusal, makes jargon. One of my paradoxers was present at a meeting of the Royal Society (in 1864, I think) and asked permission to make some remarks upon a paper. He rambled into other things, and, naming me, said that I had written a book in which two sides of a triangle are pronouncedequalto the third.[462]So they are, in the sense in which the word is used in complete algebra; in which A + B = C makes A, B, C, three sides of a triangle, and declares that going over A and B, one after the other, is equivalent, in change of place, to going over C at once. My critic, who might, if he pleased, have objected to extension, insisted upon reading me in unextended meaning.
On the other hand, it must be said that those who wrote on the other idea wrote very obscurely about it and justified Des Cartes (De Methodo)[463]when he said: "Algebram vero, ut solet doceri, animadverti certis regulis et numerandi formulis ita esse contentam, ut videatur potius ars quædam confusa, cujus usu ingenium quodam modo turbatur et obscuratur, quam scientia qua excolatur et perspicaciusreddatur."[464]Maseres wrote this sentence on the title of his own work, now before me; he would have made it his motto if he had found it earlier.
There is, I believe, in Cobbett'sAnnual Register,[465]an account of an interview between Maseres and Cobbett when in prison.
The conversation of Maseres was lively, and full of serious anecdote: but only one attempt at humorous satire is recorded of him; it is an instructive one. He was born in 1731 (Dec. 15), and his father was a refugee. French was the language of the house, with the pronunciation of the time of Louis XIV. He lived until 1824 (May 19), and saw the race of refugees who were driven out by the first Revolution. Their pronunciation differed greatly from his own; and he used to amuse himself by mimicking them. Those who heard him and them had the two schools of pronunciation before them at once; a thing which seldom happens. It might even yet be worth while to examine the Canadian pronunciation.
Maseres went as Attorney-General to Quebec; and was appointed Cursitor Baron of our Exchequer in 1773. There is a curious story about his mission to Canada, which I have heard as good tradition, but have never seen in print. The reader shall have it as cheap as I; and I confess I rather believe it. Maseres was inveterately honest; he could not, at the bar, bear to see his own client victorious, when he knew his cause was a bad one. On a certain occasion he was in a cause which he knew would go against him if a certain case were quoted. Neither the judge nor the opposite counsel seemed to remember this case, and Maseres could not help dropping an allusion which brought it out.His business as a barrister fell off, of course. Some time after, Mr. Pitt (Chatham) wanted a lawyer to send to Canada on a private mission, and wanted avery honest man. Some one mentioned Maseres, and told the above story: Pitt saw that he had got the man he wanted. The mission was satisfactorily performed, and Maseres remained as Attorney-General.
TheDoctrine of Life Annuities[466](4to, 726 pages, 1783) is a strange paradox. Its size, the heavy dissertations on the national debt, and the depth of algebra supposed known, put it out of the question as an elementary work, and it is unfitted for the higher student by its elaborate attempt at elementary character, shown in its rejection of forms derived from chances in favor ofthe average, and its exhibition of the separate values of the years of an annuity, as arithmetical illustrations. It is a climax of unsaleability, unreadability, and inutility. For intrinsic nullity of interest, and dilution of little matter with much ink, I can compare this book to nothing but that of Claude de St. Martin, elsewhere mentioned, or the lecturesOn the Nature and Properties of Logarithms, by James Little,[467]Dublin, 1830, 8vo. (254 heavy pages of many words and few symbols), a wonderful weight of weariness.
The stock of this work on annuities, very little diminished, was given by the author to William Frend, who paid warehouse room for it until about 1835, when he consulted me as to its disposal. As no publisher could be found who would take it as a gift, for any purpose of sale, it was consigned, all but a few copies, to a buyer of waste paper.
Baron Maseres's republications are well known: theScriptores Logarithmici[468]is a set of valuable reprints, mixedwith much which might better have entered into another collection. It is not so well known that there is a volume of optical reprints,Scriptores Optici, London, 1823, 4to, edited for the veteran of ninety-two by Mr. Babbage[469]at twenty-nine. This excellent volume contains James Gregory, Des Cartes, Halley, Barrow, and the optical writings of Huyghens, thePrincipiaof the undulatory theory. It also contains, by the sort of whim in which such men as Maseres, myself, and some others are apt to indulge, a reprint of "The great new Art of weighing Vanity,"[470]by M. Patrick Mathers, Arch-Bedel to the University of St. Andrews, Glasgow, 1672. Professor Sinclair,[471]of Glasgow, a good man at clearing mines of the water which they did not want, and furnishing cities with water which they did want, seems to have written absurdly about hydrostatics, and to have attacked a certain Sanders,[472]M.A. So Sanders, assisted by James Gregory, published a heavy bit of jocosity about him. This story of the authorship rested on a note made in hiscopy by Robert Gray, M.D.; but it has since been fully confirmed by a letter of James Gregory to Collins, in the Macclesfield Correspondence. "There is one Master Sinclair, who did write theArs Magna et Nova,[473]a pitiful ignorant fellow, who hath lately written horrid nonsense in the hydrostatics, and hath abused a master in the University, one Mr. Sanders, in print. This Mr. Sanders ... is resolved to cause the Bedel of the University to write against him.... We resolve to make excellent sport with him."
On this I make two remarks: First, I have learned from experience that old notes, made in books by their possessors, are statements of high authority: they are almost always confirmed. I do not receive them without hesitation; but I believe that of all the statements about books which rest on one authority, there is a larger percentage of truth in the written word than in the printed word. Secondly, I mourn to think that when the New Zealander picks up his old copy of this book, and reads it by the associations of his own day, he may, in spite of the many assurances I have received that myAthenæum Budgetwas amusing, feel me to be as heavy as I feel James Gregory and Sanders. But he will see that I knew what was coming, which Gregory did not.
MR. FREND'S BURLESQUE.
It was left for Mr. Frend to prove that an impugner of algebra could attempt ridicule. He was, in 1803, editor of a periodicalThe Gentleman's Monthly Miscellany, which lasted a few months.[474]To this, among other things, he contributed the following, in burlesque of the use made of 0, to which he objected.[475]The imitation of Rabelais, a writerin whom he delighted, is good: to those who have never dipped, it may give such a notion as they would not easily get elsewhere. The point of the satire is not so good. But in truth it is not easy to make pungent scoffs upon what is common sense to all mankind. Who can laugh with effect at six times nothing is nothing, as false or unintelligible? In an article intended for that undistinguishing know-0 the "general reader," there would have been no force of satire, ifdivisionby 0 had been separated from multiplication by the same.
I have followed the above by another squib, by the same author, on the English language. The satire is covertly aimed at theological phraseology; and any one who watches this subject will see that it is a very just observation that the Greek words are not boiled enough.
Pantagruel's Decisionof theQuestionaboutNothing.
"Pantagruel determined to have a snug afternoon with Epistemon and Panurge. Dinner was ordered to be set in a small parlor, and a particular batch of Hermitage with some choice Burgundy to be drawn from a remote corner of the cellar upon the occasion. By way of lunch, about an hour before dinner, Pantagruel was composing his stomach with German sausages, reindeer's tongues, oysters, brawn, and half a dozen different sorts of English beer just come into fashion, when a most thundering knocking was heard at the great gate, and from the noise they expected it to announce the arrival at least of the First Consul, or king Gargantua. Panurge was sent to reconnoiter, and after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the news that the University of Pontemaca was waiting his highness's leisure in the great hall, to propound a question whichhad turned the brains of thirty-nine students, and had flung twenty-seven more into a high fever. With all my heart, says Pantagruel, and swallowed down three quarts of Burton ale; but remember, it wants but an hour of dinner time, and the question must be asked in as few words as possible; for I cannot deprive myself of the pleasure I expected to enjoy in the company of my good friends for a set of mad-headed masters. I wish brother John was here to settle these matters with the black gentry.
"Having said or rather growled this, he proceeded to the hall of ceremony, and mounted his throne; Epistemon and Panurge standing on each side, but two steps below him. Then advanced to the throne the three beadles of the University of Pontemaca with their silver staves on their shoulders, and velvet caps on their heads, and they were followed by three times three doctors, and thrice three times three masters of art; for everything was done in Pontemaca by the number three, and on this account the address was written on parchment, one foot in breadth, and thrice three times thrice three feet in length. The beadles struck the ground with their heads and their staves three times in approaching the throne; the doctors struck the ground with their heads thrice three times, and the masters did the same thrice each time, beating the ground with their heads thrice three times. This was the accustomed form of approaching the throne, time out of mind, and it was said to be emblematic of the usual prostration of science to the throne of greatness.
"The mathematical professor, after having spit, and hawked, and cleared his throat, and blown his nose on a handkerchief lent to him, for he had forgotten to bring his own, began to read the address. In this he was assisted by three masters of arts, one of whom, with a silver pen, pointed out the stops; the second with a small stick rapped his knuckles when he was to raise or lower his voice; and a third pulled his hair behind when he was to look Pantagruel in the face. Pantagruel began to chafe like a lion:he turned first on one side, then on the other: he listened and groaned, and groaned and listened, and was in the utmost cogitabundity of cogitation. His countenance began to brighten, when, at the end of an hour, the reader stammered out these words:
"'It has therefore been most clearly proved that as all matter may be divided into parts infinitely smaller than the infinitely smallest part of the infinitesimal of nothing, so nothing has all the properties of something, and may become, by just and lawful right, susceptible of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squaring, and cubing: that it is to all intents and purposes as good as anything that has been, is, or can be taught in the nine universities of the land, and to deprive it of its rights is a most cruel innovation and usurpation, tending to destroy all just subordination in the world, making all universities superfluous, leveling vice-chancellors, doctors, and proctors, masters, bachelors, and scholars, to the mean and contemptible state of butchers and tallow-chandlers, bricklayers and chimney-sweepers, who, if it were not for these learned mysteries, might think that they knew as much as their betters. Every one then, who has the good of science at heart, must pray for the interference of his highness to put a stop to all the disputes about nothing, and by his decision to convince all gainsayers that the science of nothing is taught in the best manner in the universities, to the great edification and improvement of all the youth in the land.'
"Here Pantagruel whispered in the ear of Panurge, who nodded to Epistemon, and they two left the assembly, and did not return for an hour, till the orator had finished his task. The three beadles had thrice struck the ground with their heads and staves, thedoctorshad finished their compliments, and the masters were making their twenty-seven prostrations. Epistemon and Panurge went up to Pantagruel, whom they found fast asleep and snoring; nor could he be roused but by as many tugs as there had beenbowings from the corps of learning. At last he opened his eyes, gave a good stretch, made half a dozen yawns, and called for a stoup of wine. I thank you, my masters, says he; so sound a nap I have not had since I came from the island of Priestfolly. Have you dined, my masters? They answered the question by as many bows as at entrance; but his highness left them to the care of Panurge, and retired to the little parlor with Epistemon, where they burst into a fit of laughter, declaring that this learned Baragouin about nothing was just as intelligible as the lawyer's Galimathias. Panurge conducted the learned body into a large saloon, and each in his way hearing a clattering of plates and glasses, congratulated himself on his approaching good cheer. There they were left by Panurge, who took his chair by Pantagruel just as the soup was removed, but he made up for the want of that part of his dinner by a pint of champagne. The learning of the university had whetted their appetites; what they each ate it is needless to recite; good wine, good stories, and hearty laughs went round, and three hours elapsed before one soul of them recollected the hungry students of Pontemaca.
"Epistemon reminded them of the business in hand, and orders were given for a fresh dozen of hermitage to be put upon table, and the royal attendants to get ready. As soon as the dozen bottles were emptied, Pantagruel rose from table, the royal trumpets sounded, and he was accompanied by the great officers of his court into the large dining hall, where was a table with forty-two covers. Pantagruel sat at the head, Epistemon at the bottom, and Panurge in the middle, opposite an immense silver tureen, which would hold fifty gallons of soup. The wise men of Pontemaca then took their seats according to seniority. Every countenance glistened with delight; the music struck up; the dishes were uncovered. Panurge had enough to do to handle the immense silver ladle: Pantagruel and Epistemon had no time for eating, they were fully employed in carving. The billof fare announced the names of a hundred different dishes. From Panurge's ladle came into the soup plate as much as he took every time out of the tureen; and as it was the rule of the court that every one should appear to eat, as long as he sat at table, there was the clattering of nine and thirty spoons against the silver soup-plates for a quarter of an hour. They were then removed, and knives and forks were in motion for half an hour. Glasses were continually handed round in the mean time, and then everything was removed, except the great tureen of soup. The second course was now served up, in dispatching which half an hour was consumed; and at the conclusion the wise men of Pontemaca had just as much in their stomachs as Pantagruel in his head from their address: for nothing was cooked up for them in every possible shape that Panurge could devise.
"Wine-glasses, large decanters, fruit dishes, and plates were now set on. Pantagruel and Epistemon alternately gave bumper toasts: the University of Pontemaca, the eye of the world, the mother of taste and good sense and universal learning, the patroness of utility, and the second only to Pantagruel in wisdom and virtue (for these were her titles), was drank standing with thrice three times three, and huzzas and clattering of glasses; but to such wine the wise men of Pontemaca had not been accustomed; and though Pantagruel did not suffer one to rise from table till the eighty-first glass had been emptied, not even the weakest headed master of arts felt his head in the least indisposed. The decanters indeed were often removed, but they were brought back replenished, filled always with nothing.
"Silence was now proclaimed, and in a trice Panurge leaped into the large silver tureen. Thence he made his bows to Pantagruel and the whole company, and commenced an oration of signs, which lasted an hour and a half, and in which he went over all the matter contained in the Pontemaca address; and though the wise men looked very serious during the whole time, Pantagruel himself and his wholecourt could not help indulging in repeated bursts of laughter. It was universally acknowledged that he excelled himself, and that the arguments by which he beat the English masters of arts at Paris were nothing to the exquisite selection of attitudes which he this day assumed. The greatest shouts of applause were excited when he was running thrice round the tureen on its rim, with his left hand holding his nose, and the other exercising itself nine and thirty times on his back. In this attitude he concluded with his back to the professor of mathematics; and at the instant he gave his last flap, by a sudden jump, and turning heels over head in the air, he presented himself face to face to the professor, and standing on his left leg, with his left hand holding his nose, he presented to him, in a white satin bag, Pantagruel's royal decree. Then advancing his right leg, he fixed it on the professor's head, and after three turns, in which he clapped his sides with both hands thrice three times, down he leaped, and Pantagruel, Epistemon, and himself took their leaves of the wise men of Pontemaca.
"The wise men now retired, and by royal orders were accompanied by a guard, and according to the etiquette of the court, no one having a royal order could stop at any public house till it was delivered. The procession arrived at Pontemaca at nine o'clock the next morning, and the sound of bells from every church and college announced their arrival. The congregation was assembled; the royal decree was saluted in the same manner as if his highness had been there in person; and after the proper ceremonies had been performed, the satin bag was opened exactly at twelve o'clock. A finely emblazoned roll was drawn forth, and the public orator read to the gaping assembly the following words:
"'They who can make something out of nothing shall have nothing to eat at the court of—Pantagruel.'"
Originof theEnglish Language,related by aSwede.
"Some months ago in a party in Holland, consisting of natives of various countries, the merit of their respective languages became a topic of conversation. A Swede, who had been a great traveler, and could converse in most of the modern languages of Europe, laughed very heartily at an Englishman, who had ventured to speak in praise of the tongue of his dear country. I never had any trouble, says he, in learning English. To my very great surprise, the moment I sat foot on shore at Gravesend, I found out, that I could understand, with very little trouble, every word that was said. It was a mere jargon, made up of German, French, and Italian, with now and then a word from the Spanish, Latin or Greek. I had only to bring my mouth to their mode of speaking, which was done with ease in less than a week, and I was everywhere taken for a true-born Englishman; a privilege by the way of no small importance in a country, where each man, God knows why, thinks his foggy island superior to any other part of the world: and though his door is never free from some dun or other coming for a tax, and if he steps out of it he is sure to be knocked down or to have his pocket picked, yet he has the insolence to think every foreigner a miserable slave, and his country the seat of everything wretched. They may talk of liberty as they please, but Spain or Turkey for my money: barring the bowstring and the inquisition, they are the most comfortable countries under heaven, and you need not be afraid of either, if you do not talk of religion and politics. I do not see much difference too in this respect in England, for when I was there, one of their most eminent men for learning was put in prison for a couple of years, and got his death for translating one of Æsop's fables into English, which every child in Spain and Turkey is taught, as soon as he comes out of his leading strings. Here all the company unanimously cried out against the Swede, that it wasimpossible: for in England, the land of liberty, the only thing its worst enemies could say against it, was, that they paid for their liberty a much greater price than it was worth.—Every man there had a fair trial according to laws, which everybody could understand; and the judges were cool, patient, discerning men, who never took the part of the crown against the prisoner, but gave him every assistance possible for his defense.
"The Swede was borne down, but not convinced; and he seemed determined to spit out all his venom. Well, says he, at any rate you will not deny that the English have not got a language of their own, and that they came by it in a very odd way. Of this at least I am certain, for the whole history was related to me by a witch in Lapland, whilst I was bargaining for a wind. Here the company were all in unison again for the story.
"In ancient times, said the old hag, the English occupied a spot in Tartary, where they lived sulkily by themselves, unknowing and unknown. By a great convulsion that took place in China, the inhabitants of that and the adjoining parts of Tartary were driven from their seats, and after various wanderings took up their abode in Germany. During this time nobody could understand the English, for they did not talk, but hissed like so many snakes. The poor people felt uneasy under this circumstance, and in one of their parliaments, or rather hissing meetings, it was determined to seek a remedy: and an embassy was sent to some of our sisterhood then living on Mount Hecla. They were put to a nonplus, and summoned the Devil to their relief. To him the English presented their petitions, and explained their sad case; and he, upon certain conditions, promised to befriend them, and to give them a language. The poor Devil was little aware of what he had promised; but he is, as all the world knows, a man of too much honor to break his word. Up and down the world then he went in quest of this new language: visited all the universities, and allthe schools, and all the courts of law, and all the play-houses, and all the prisons; never was poor devil so fagged. It would have made your heart bleed to see him. Thrice did he go round the earth in every parallel of latitude; and at last, wearied and jaded out, back came he to Hecla in despair, and would have thrown himself into the volcano, if he had been made of combustible materials. Luckily at that time our sisters were engaged in settling the balance of Europe; and whilst they were looking over projects, and counter-projects, and ultimatums, and post ultimatums, the poor Devil, unable to assist them was groaning in a corner and ruminating over his sad condition.
"On a sudden, a hellish joy overspread his countenance; up he jumped, and, like Archimedes of old, ran like a madman amongst the throng, turning over tables, and papers, and witches, roaring out for a full hour together nothing else but 'tis found, 'tis found! Away were sent the sisterhood in every direction, some to traverse all the corners of the earth, and others to prepare a larger caldron than had ever yet been set upon Hecla. The affairs of Europe were at a stand: its balance was thrown aside; prime ministers and ambassadors were everywhere in the utmost confusion; and, by the way, they have never been able to find the balance since that time, and all the fine speeches upon the subject, with which your newspapers are every now and then filled, are all mere hocus-pocus and rhodomontade. However, the caldron was soon set on, and the air was darkened by witches riding on broomsticks, bringing a couple of folios under each arm, and across each shoulder. I remember the time exactly: it was just as the council of Nice had broken up, so that they got books and papers there dog cheap; but it was a bad thing for the poor English, as these were the worst materials that entered into the caldron. Besides, as the Devil wanted some amusement, and had not seen an account of the transactions of this famous council, he had all the books brought from it laid before him, and split his sides almostwith laughing, whilst he was reading the speeches and decrees of so many of his old friends and acquaintances. All this while the witches were depositing their loads in the great caldron. There were books from the Dalai Lama, and from China: there were books from the Hindoos, and tallies from the Caffres: there were paintings from Mexico, and rocks of hieroglyphics from Egypt: the last country supplied besides the swathings of two thousand mummies, and four-fifths of the famed library of Alexandria. Bubble! bubble! toil and trouble! never was a day of more labor and anxiety; and if our good master had but flung in the Greek books at the proper time, they would have made a complete job of it. He was a little too impatient: as the caldron frothed up, he skimmed it off with a great ladle, and filled some thousands of our wind-bags with the froth, which the English with great joy carried back to their own country. These bags were sent to every district: the chiefs first took their fill, and then the common people; hence they now speak a language which no foreigner can understand, unless he has learned half a dozen other languages; and the poor people, not one in ten, understand a third part of what is said to them. The hissing, however, they have not entirely got rid of, and every seven years, when the Devil, according to agreement, pays them a visit, they entertain him at their common halls and county meetings with their original language.
"The good-natured old hag told me several other circumstances, relative to this curious transaction, which, as there is an Englishman in company, it will be prudent to pass over in silence: but I cannot help mentioning one thing which she told me as a very great secret. You know, says she to me, that the English have more religions among them than any other nation in Europe, and that there is more teaching and sermonizing with them than in any other country. The fact is this; it matters not who gets up to teach them, the hard words of the Greek were not sufficientlyboiled, and whenever they get into a sentence, the poor people's brains are turned, and they know no more what the preacher is talking about, than if he harangued them in Arabic. Take my word for it if you please; but if not, when you get to England, desire the bettermost sort of people that you are acquainted with to read to you an act of parliament, which of course is written in the clearest and plainest style in which anything can be written, and you will find that not one in ten will be able to make tolerable sense of it. The language would have been an excellent language, if it had not been for the council of Nice, and the words had been well boiled.
"Here the company burst out into a fit of laughter. The Englishman got up and shook hands with the Swede:si non è vero, said he,è ben trovato.[476]But, however I may laugh at it here, I would not advise you to tell this story on the other side of the water. So here's a bumper to Old England for ever, and God save the king."
ON YOUTHFUL PRODIGIES.
The accounts given of extraordinary children and adolescents frequently defy credence.[477]I will give two well-attested instances.
The celebrated mathematician Alexis Claude Clairault (now Clairaut)[478]was certainly born in May, 1713. His treatise on curves of double curvature (printed in 1731)[479]receivedthe approbation of the Academy of Sciences, August 23, 1729. Fontenelle, in his certificate of this, calls the author sixteen years of age, and does not strive to exaggerate the wonder, as he might have done, by reminding his readers that this work, of original and sustained mathematical investigation, must have been coming from the pen at the ages of fourteen and fifteen. The truth was, as attested by De Molières,[480]Clairaut had given public proofs of his power at twelve years old. His age being thus publicly certified, all doubt is removed: say he had been—though great wonder would still have been left—twenty-one instead of sixteen, his appearance, and the remembrances of his friends, schoolfellows, etc., would have made it utterly hopeless to knock off five years of that age while he was on view in Paris as a young lion. De Molières, who examined the work officially for theGarde des Sceaux, is transported beyond the bounds of official gravity, and says that it "ne mérite pas seulement d'être imprimé, mais d'être admiré comme un prodige d'imagination, de conception, et de capacité."[481]
That Blaise Pascal was born in June, 1623, is perfectly well established and uncontested.[482]That he wrote his conic sections at the age of sixteen might be difficult to establish, though tolerably well attested, if it were not forone circumstance, for the book was not published. The celebrated theorem, "Pascal's hexagram,"[483]makes all the rest come very easy. Now Curabelle,[484]in a work published in 1644, sneers at Desargues,[485]whom he quotes, for having, in 1642, deferred a discussion until "cette grande proposition nommée le Pascale verra le jour."[486]That is, by the time Pascal was nineteen, thehexagramwas circulating under a name derived from the author. The common story about Pascal, given by his sister,[487]is an absurdity which no doubt has prejudiced many against tales of early proficiency. He is made, when quite a boy, to invent geometryin the order of Euclid's propositions: as if that order were natural sequence of investigation. The hexagram at ten years old would be a hundred times less unlikely.
The instances named are painfully astonishing: I give one which has fallen out of sight, because it will preserve an imperfect biography. John Wilson[488]is Wilson of thatIlk, that is, of "Wilson's Theorem." It is this: ifpbe a prime number, the product of all the numbers up top-1, increased by 1, is divisible without remainder byp. All mathematicians know this as Wilson's theorem, but few know who Wilson was. He was born August 6, 1741, at the Howe in Applethwaite, and he was heir to a small estate at Troutbeck in Westmoreland. He was sent to Peterhouse, at Cambridge, and while an undergraduate was considered stronger in algebra than any one in the University, except Professor Waring, one of the most powerful algebraists of the century.[489]He was the senior wrangler of 1761, and was then for some time a private tutor. When Paley,[490]then in his third year, determined to make a push for the senior wranglership, which he got, Wilson was recommended to him as a tutor. Both were ardent in their work, except that sometimes Paley, when he came for his lesson, would find "Gone a fishing" written on his tutor's outer door: which was insult added to injury, for Paley was very fond of fishing. Wilson soon left Cambridge, and went to the bar. He practised on the northern circuit with great success; and, one day, while passing his vacation on his little property at Troutbeck, he received information, to his great surprise, that Lord Thurlow,[491]with whom he hadno acquaintance, had recommended him to be a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He died, Oct. 18, 1793, with a very high reputation as a lawyer and a Judge. These facts are partly from Meadley'sLife of Paley,[492]no doubt from Paley himself, partly from theGentleman's Magazine, and from an epitaph written by Bishop Watson.[493]Wilson did not publish anything: the theorem by which he has cut his name in the theory of numbers was communicated to Waring, by whom it was published. He married, in 1788, a daughter of Serjeant Adair,[494]and left issue.Had a family, many will say: but a man and his wife are a family, even without children. An actuary may be allowed to be accurate in this matter, of which I was reminded by what an actuary wrote of another actuary. William Morgan,[495]in the life of his uncle Dr. Richard Price,[496]says that the Doctor and hiswife were "never blessed with an addition to their family." I never met with such accuracy elsewhere. Of William Morgan I add that my surname and pursuits have sometimes, to my credit be it said, made a confusion between him and me. Dates are nothing to the mistaken; the last three years of Morgan's life were the first three years of my actuary-life (1830-33). The mistake was to my advantage as well as to my credit. I owe to it the acquaintance of one of the noblest of the human race, I mean Elizabeth Fry,[497]who came to me for advice about a philanthropic design, which involved life questions, under a general impression that some Morgan had attended to such things.[498]