[A]The passages marked with inverted commas in praise of what Sir N. H. Nicolas now condemns, are,mutatis mutandis, from his own letter of the 20th of October, 1837, inserted above,p. 5. They were not so marked in my original letter of the 25th of May. Sir Nicholas complains of this in the following words: "The English Public would learn with astonishment, the manner in which, by a series ofunmarkedquotations, a generous letter may be perverted to ungenerous purposes." The purpose for which I used his letter, was my own defence against his attacks,—his own former words being the most triumphant answer to hisrecentopinions; and I do not see why I should be found fault with, because I have shown that Sir Nicholas unsaysnowwhat he has formerly said, though he denied having said it. Does he mean to avow at last, that he has ventured to attack merecently, because he had forgotten,nothis former opinions, (opinions so strongly entertained arenotforgotten) but his having expressed them?A. P.
[A]The passages marked with inverted commas in praise of what Sir N. H. Nicolas now condemns, are,mutatis mutandis, from his own letter of the 20th of October, 1837, inserted above,p. 5. They were not so marked in my original letter of the 25th of May. Sir Nicholas complains of this in the following words: "The English Public would learn with astonishment, the manner in which, by a series ofunmarkedquotations, a generous letter may be perverted to ungenerous purposes." The purpose for which I used his letter, was my own defence against his attacks,—his own former words being the most triumphant answer to hisrecentopinions; and I do not see why I should be found fault with, because I have shown that Sir Nicholas unsaysnowwhat he has formerly said, though he denied having said it. Does he mean to avow at last, that he has ventured to attack merecently, because he had forgotten,nothis former opinions, (opinions so strongly entertained arenotforgotten) but his having expressed them?
A. P.
[B]It seems—from the impression which others have of this occurrence which I have totally forgotten,—that Sir N. H. Nicolas could not obtain the Index, because it was not entered in the Catalogue; whence I concluded that it was not in the Library. If all this be true, it only provesan error in the Catalogue; but it has nothing to do with the working of the system, as Sir N. H. Nicolas must know as well as I do.A. P.
[B]It seems—from the impression which others have of this occurrence which I have totally forgotten,—that Sir N. H. Nicolas could not obtain the Index, because it was not entered in the Catalogue; whence I concluded that it was not in the Library. If all this be true, it only provesan error in the Catalogue; but it has nothing to do with the working of the system, as Sir N. H. Nicolas must know as well as I do.
A. P.
[C]This letter has been inserted above,page 7.
[C]This letter has been inserted above,page 7.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.
Punctuation errors have been corrected without note.