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 TO THE 
 
 BOARD OF VISITORS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GREENWICH ROYAL OBSERVATORY 
 
 IN REPLY TO 
 
 THE CALUMNIES OF MR. BABBAGE AT THEIR 
 
 MEETING IN JUNE 1853, AND 
 IN HIS BOOK ENTITLED THE EXPOSITION OF 1851, 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. R. SHEEPSHANKS, M.A. 
 
 ONE OF THE VISITORS. 
 
 Lsedere gaudes, 
 
 Inquis ; et hoc studio pravus facis. Unde petitum 
 Hoc in me jacis? est auctor quis denique eorum 
 Vixi cum quibus ? 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY G. BARCLAY, CASTLE ST. LEICESTER SQ. 
 
 1854. 
 
" Chi potendo vietar, non vieta II male, 
 
 E parligian della ribalderia ; 
 E chiunque e gentiluom naiurak, 
 
 E obbligato per cavalleria 
 D' esser nemico eT ogni disleale, 
 
 E far vendetta d 1 ogni villania ; 
 E se qualch' un di voi questo disprezza, 
 In se non lia bonta ne gentilezza." 
 
 BEENI, Orlando Innamorato, lib. i. canto xxi. stan. 6. 
 
36 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 SOME time after the opening of the Great Exhibition o/ 1851, 
 Mr. Babbage published a work, entitled, The Exposition of 
 1851; or, Views of the Industry, the Science, and the Govern- 
 ment of England. The twelfth chapter of this very miscel- 
 laneous jumble is headed, Intrigues of Science, and is chiefly 
 devoted to a relation of the persecutions of which Mr. Babbage 
 imagines himself to have been the object, and of which he supposes 
 me to have been the director and manager. 
 
 A few months later, Sir James South, who is Mr. Babbage's 
 intimate ally and tool, published a letter in the Mechanics' Maga- 
 zine, in which he records certain conversations between himself 
 and the late Mr. Troughton, about thirty years ago. I have some 
 grounds for suspecting this publication to have been instigated by 
 Mr. Babbage. 
 
 I did not hear of. Mr. Babbage's attack upon me till some time 
 after its publication, and it was in conversation with Mr. Airy that 
 I first learned its nature. I was too much engaged at the moment 
 to make a reply, and felt in no hurry about it, being assured that 
 no well-informed person could give credence to such a tissue of 
 absurd assertions, and still more absurd deductions. Perhaps I 
 should have passed the matter over altogether, as not worth my 
 attention, if Mr. Babbage had not sought a further occasion for 
 discharging his spleen. 
 
 Having obtained, as he supposed, a sufficient corpus delicti in 
 Sir James's published letter, Mr. Babbage took upon himself the 
 grateful and congenial task of public prosecutor. He sent copies 
 of the Mechanics' Magazine to the Councils of the Royal and of 
 the Royal Astronomical Society, as a sort of impeachment ; expect- 
 ing, I suppose, that these bodies would take the matter up, and 
 put me on my defence. The Council of the Astronomical Society, 
 to whom Sir James and I were both well known, and who had also 
 had, not long before, a striking proof that the Mechanics' Magazine 
 is not precisely a trustworthy authority, Alighted the affair. I can 
 speak less confidently of the Council of the Royal, but I know 
 that no explanation was asked of me. 
 
 Baffled in these attempts, Mr. Babbage brought forward the 
 substance of Sir James's letter, as a charge against me, at the 
 meeting of the Board of Greenwich Visitors in June 1853, and I 
 then learned, for the first time, what I was accused of. My reply 
 was necessarily short and uncircumstantial ; but while I admitted 
 
 881 
 
iv ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 tLat I had, thirty years ago, introduced a foreign instrument without 
 payment of duty, I denied, in the flattest and least civil language, 
 the truth of the rest of Sir James's story ; and I believe that the 
 gentlemen who heard me had no doubt of my veracity. 
 
 At the last Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society, Mr. 
 Babbage was allowed to read the letter from the Mechanics 1 
 Magazine, and to ask for an explanation ! This I proceeded to 
 give, but was stopped just as I was proceeding to show the incom- 
 patibility of Sir James's present story with the whole of his pre- 
 vious conduct. 
 
 In the present letter I have shown, I think, circumstantially 
 and conclusively, the patent falsehood of Sir James South's remi- 
 niscences. I have entered into more detail than is necessary for 
 those who know both parties, but it is my duty to the gentlemen 
 whom I am proud to call my friends, to justify their confidence in 
 me as completely as lies within my power. If a libeller puts his 
 libel into the mouth of a dead man, and asserts that the conversation 
 took place between the two, I see no possibility of doing more 
 than I have done. I deny the truth of the story, I show that the 
 witness is unworthy, and I point out that he is contradicted by his 
 own subsequent conduct, and by the whole life of his supposed 
 informant. I beg of any one, who has still any doubt left, to 
 inquire from those who know Sir James and me, what is our 
 relative authority. 
 
 I attribute Mr. Babbage's blundering pertinacity to a diseased 
 mind, and I believe this conclusion is far from being confined to 
 myself. I should be glad to make the same excuse for Sir James 
 South ; but I must frankly own that his conduct is not repug- 
 nant to his character, and though he has shown more boldness 
 than I gave him credit for, I attribute this rather to a defect in 
 apprehension than to a superfluity of courage. The Mechanics' 
 Magazine is labouring in its vocation, and suiting its wares to 
 its customers ; and yet I think this journal, too, had its own 
 inducement. 
 
 I have thought it best, while I was engaged with Mr. Babbage 
 as the instigator, bottle-holder, advertiser, and placard-bearer of 
 Sir James, to settle our own private dispute. For the honour of 
 Cambridge (though I scarcely allow him to be pur sang), I hope 
 he will state more truly and argue more logically in his reply, if 
 he makes one, than he has done in his assault. 
 
 I regret that my justification has required me to quote con- 
 versations with persons now deceased. It must be remembered 
 that the publication of a conversation supposed to have been held 
 with the late Mr. Troughton, is the cause of my troubling the 
 public at all. 
 
 R. SHEEPS-HANKS. 
 
 Athenaeum, Nov. 25, 1854. 
 
A LETTER, &c. 
 
 THE members of the Board of Greenwich Visitors, who were 
 present at the meeting in 1853, will remember that Mr. Babbage 
 brought certain charges against me, founded on a letter by Sir 
 James South, published in the Mechanics' Magazine. It will 
 also be remembered that I gave the most positive denial, and in the 
 least courteous terms, to the graver part of those charges, declaring 
 them to be the simple invention of Sir James South and without 
 any foundation. I do not complain, but the Board surely may, 
 that no notice was given either to me or to them of this intended 
 attack, and that no copy of Sir James South's letter was pro- 
 duced : this want of business-like conduct on the part of Mr. 
 Babbage wasted a great deal of our time and rendered the discus- 
 sion less specific and satisfactory than it might have been, had 
 I previously known the nature* of the charges. I do not think 
 any of the gentlemen present doubted my statements, and even 
 Mr. Babbage himself, if capable of reflection, must have seen that 
 his prejudices had warped his judgment. 
 
 At the subsequent Anniversary Meeting of the Royal Society, 
 however, Mr. Babbage renewed his assault, and now read the letter 
 of Sir James South, requesting, if I remember correctly, that the 
 President would call upon me for an explanation. This, after some 
 interruption and confusion, I proceeded to give ; but as the lan- 
 guage I happened to use, though appropriate and parliamentary, 
 was not sufficiently honied to suit the tastes of several gentlemen 
 present, who had heard me charged with an attempt to suborn 
 perjury without being at all shocked, I was stopped in my 
 defence just as I was entering on the most essential part, which 
 would scarcely have occupied three minutes. 
 
 The Bye-laws of the Royal Society direct that any charge 
 against a Fellow of the Royal Society shall be brought before the 
 Council, and Mr. Babbage had already attempted this course with 
 the Councils of the Royal and the Royal Astronomical Societies, 
 but without success. He might, perhaps, have legally moved a 
 vote of censure on the Council of the Royal Society for neglecting 
 his accusation : his actual proceeding was entirely irregular and 
 contrary to law as well as to good manners. (See Appendix, No. I.) 
 
 * I did know that Sir James South had attacked me in the Mechanics' 
 Magazine, but I had not seen the letter nor had any idea of its contents (further 
 than that it related to my introducing an instrument without payment of duty), 
 until Mr. Babbage enlightened me. 
 
6 
 
 I am not going to m^ke a great grief of this unjust and un- 
 gentlemanlike behaviour of some members of the Royal Society 
 (for harsh as the term may seem, a denial of justice is ungentle- 
 manlike), but I must say that I feel nearly as much ashamed for 
 them as I am indignant for myself. A gross breach of the law 
 was permitted, a grave accusation was made, and the answer, 
 which would have shown the absurdity of the accusation, was 
 cut short by misplaced and cowardly delicacy. I was told, in- 
 deed, by several gentlemen, that any further defence was unneces- 
 sary, that I had sufficiently exposed the improbability of Sir 
 J. South's assertions, and that -I might be quite satisfied no 
 one believed him. Supposing all this to be true (and yet 
 we know how often, when dirt is boldly thrown, a little will 
 stick), I cannot help feeling that I did not deserve the treatment I 
 received; and I must express my belief that an ordinary meeting 
 of mechanics would not have allowed an inoifensive member to be 
 thus attacked, in clear breach of their own regulations, on any such 
 trumpery grounds at all : still less would they have interrupted his 
 defence. * 
 
 I have no intention, however, of establishing a feud with the 
 Royal Society, or any part of it; and having protested against their 
 conduct towards myself, and against the precedent, I will proceed 
 to state the chargesj^rought against me by Messrs. Babbage and 
 South, with my explanation and defence. 
 
 Sir James South's letter was published in the Mechanics' 
 Magazine,, January 24, 1852, and is as follows: 
 
 " IN RE BABBAGE V. SHEEPSHANKS. 
 
 " 'If this be not subornation of perjury, it is very like it.' Mech. Mag., 
 Jan. 17, 1852. 
 
 " Sir, The perusal of the able article in your Journal, from 
 which the above extract is taken, has called to my mind a 
 parallel instance of quasi-subornation of perjury, which you may, 
 perhaps, deem not unworthy a corner in your pages, illustrating, 
 as it does very strongly, how British workmen are but too often 
 injured in their reputation by foreign counterfeits, and how the 
 practice derives encouragement from the low state of moral feeling 
 prevailing as well among scientific (or rather pseudo-scientific) as 
 among fashionable circles. 
 
 " For very many years I was on terms of the closest intimacy 
 with the late Mr. Troughton. Calling, as was my habit, almost 
 every day, I found him on one occasion in a state of great agita- 
 tion. I asked him 'What was the matter?' He said, ' That 
 
 fellow, Dick , has just left ; he has been abroad, and has 
 
 brought from Paris one of Jecker's circles : he tells me, " that to 
 avoid payment of duty for it, he has had the name of ' Troughton' 
 engraved on it ;" and he has asked me " to let one of my workmen 
 go down to the Custom-house, and clear it for him as an English 
 instrument." I told him I would rather cut off my right hand 
 than be concerned in such a rascally transaction : and from what 
 
he said, I am not sure if W is not as deep in the mud as Dick 
 
 is in the mire.' I replied, ' I hope not.' Mr. Troughton then 
 said, ' I told the fellow, if he wanted to rob the Revenue by per- 
 jury, he must get some other person to help him ; and he went 
 away in great dudgeon.' 
 
 " Some few days afterwards, calling on my old friend Trough- 
 ton, I crossed him in the passage, between his shop and his par- 
 lour, as he was coming down-stairs. Taking me by the hand, he 
 led me to the window at the further part ot the room, and bowing 
 to the window-sill, he introduced me, with a look of contempt 
 which I shall never forget, to a circle which was lying there. He 
 put it into my hands, saying, ' It was the Jecker's Circle which 
 
 S had got from the Custom-house, but whether by swearing 
 
 to a lie himself, or by having gotten some one to swear to a lie for 
 him, he did not know.' He pointed to the name of ' Troughton ' 
 engraved on it, and said, ' The imitation was a very good one, 
 and the fellow was an expert forger.' 
 
 " I am, Sir, yours, &c., 
 
 " JAMES SOUTH. 
 
 " Observatory, Kensington, July 19, 1852." 
 
 The shallow cunning with which Sir James attempts to avoid 
 the responsibility of his libel would not have saved him if it had 
 been worth my while to prosecute; but the attempt is a sample of 
 the happy manner in which his spite is tempered by cowardice 
 and folly. 
 
 There is, generally speaking, this difference between a true 
 story and a false one, that the lirst can bear a close sifting and exr 
 animation, while the latter, unless it is the work of a master, can- 
 not. Sir James South is no Defoe, nor has he the proverbially 
 necessary gift of a long memory. 
 
 An insinuation is clearly made in the first paragraph that I 
 wanted to affix a fraudulent value to a second-rate instrument, by 
 attaching Troughton's name to it. How, then, did the instrument 
 come into Troughton's hands ? Surely he was the very last 
 person to whom I should have sent it, if I had wished to pass it 
 under his name, and to the " injury of his reputation." I may also 
 ask, in what way could I merit the designation of "an expert 
 forger ? " I could not engrave the spurious inscription, for I was 
 in England all the time ; but if I had been in Paris, how could I 
 have taught a French engraver to write like an English one? 
 Troughton's name was (I think) rightly spelt rather a remark- 
 able thing but the writing was altogether and unmistakeably 
 French. 
 
 That the language attributed to Troughton is " arrant South," 
 and quite different from his own genuine Anglo-Saxon, is no solid 
 objection to the general truth of the story. Sir James could no 
 more copy, or even recite, the ipsissima verba of his " revered 
 friend," than Dr. Johnson could make little fishes talk any language 
 but that of big whales. Sir James, professing to quote " the very 
 
8 
 
 words " of his authorities, evidently uses his own. It is desirable 
 that this peculiarity of "ornamenting everything he touches" (and 
 I wish his license extended no farther) should not be overlooked. 
 
 I will now state the real circumstances of the case, and in 
 more detail than I could well do, viva voce, at the meeting of the 
 Visitors (when I was so unexpectedly called upon), or at the Royal 
 Society, where my condensed defence was so irregularly stopped. 
 
 It is known to several members of the Board that I have in 
 my time paid considerable attention to astronomical instruments 
 and, indeed, was even a sort of authority until my excellent friend, 
 the Astronomer Royal, took the wind out of my sails. I was par- 
 ticularly smitten with the principle of repetition ; and after having 
 purchased a Borda's circle by Troughton (which introduced me to 
 his acquaintance), I was most anxious to obtain a Borda's reflect- 
 ing circle by him. I soon discovered that from Mr. Troughton 
 nothing could be got, and least of all an instrument the principle 
 of which he disliked. In this dilemma, I saw a favourable 
 account, by Sir Thomas Brisbane, of the performance of a 
 circle of reflexion by Jecker of Paris ; and, as a friend was 
 going to Paris, in the winter, I believe, of 1823, I requested 
 him to procure me a circle of Jecker's, and to get Troughton's 
 name engraved upon it, so as to pass our Customs without duty, 
 and without causing him delay or trouble. This was done, and 
 the instrument, I am pretty sure, left by him at Troughton's shop 
 in Fleet Street, to have the inscription erased, and to be adapted to 
 the stand of a British circle which Troughton had recently sold 
 me. It is most probable that the officers at Dover had their atten- 
 tion drawn to the erroneous inscription by the commissioner, and so 
 passed it ; but I can say nothing about this of my own knowledge. 
 
 I own that I am now heartily ashamed of this transaction, 
 although everybody smuggled in those days, directly or indirectly.* 
 The absurdity and injustice of our fiscal laws were self-evident, 
 and, consequently, few felt bound to obey them. To me, then a 
 student in the Temple (being, as I was already, a freetrader 
 of the first water, and not favourably disposed towards the 
 financial arrangements of an unreformed house), the duty on 
 astronomical instruments was particularly ridiculous, the article 
 being as little likely to be imported into England from France, 
 in those days, as coals into Newcastle. I should be surprised 
 if the duties on astronomical instruments imported from France 
 into England in ten years from the peace, amounted to as 
 many shillings. The duty, like some others, must have been 
 imposed merely to complete the symmetry of the stupid system 
 of protection, now happily disappearing ; and had not the poor 
 merit of the laws compelling burials in woollen and the use of 
 metal buttons : there were no imports on which it could be levied. 
 I had, besides, my own grievances against the Customs, as I sup- 
 
 * At that time Bandana handkerchiefs were contraband ; yet every gentleman, 
 as Mr. Hume remarked in the House, had a bandana in his pocket, from Mr. 
 Speaker downwards. 
 
pose most persons had who travelled thirty years ago. From a mis- 
 take in form, I had some time before paid the duty upon a Geneva 
 watch according to the price paid at Geneva, and not, as the law is, 
 on the value assigned ; a difference which, in this case, amounted 
 to several pounds. Another time, returning through Brighton, 
 my party and myself were detained several hours in a passage of 
 the Custom-house, while a select portion of the Brighton unwashed 
 was gathered round the doorway ; and this because the officer had 
 no competent acquaintance with his duty,* and could not get 
 through his work. 
 
 The law being ridiculous and ill-administered and enacted by 
 an unreformed parliament, I leaned, I fear, to the doctrines of 
 my Cambridge fellow-student, " Alein, the clerk": 
 
 " For, John, ther is a lawe that saieth thus, 
 That if a man in o point be agreved, 
 That in another he shal be releved." 
 
 I looked, perhaps, upon smuggling as a sort of " reprisals" on an 
 enemy. Whether the idea of putting a false mark to mislead the 
 officers was suggested by my Brighton experience of their stupi- 
 dity, or by a common practice of traders, or by a wish to triumph 
 over the ignorance of the searchers (the deception was so gross as 
 to give me that sort of satisfaction), I cannot now recollect ; I 
 
 rather think that a wish to spare Mr. any delay or trouble 
 
 in paying the duty was my real motive. The duty itself, on a 
 proper estimation of the instrument, could not have exceeded 
 fifty shillings or three pounds. 
 
 I shall scarcely be held to justify this transaction now ; as 
 I said before, I am heartily sorry for it. I admit that silly 
 and oppressive laws must be obeyed so long as they continue 
 to be laws ; and though, in point of fact, the evasion of such laws 
 has generally been the efficient cause of their removal, I allow that 
 the only proper mode of proceeding is to press earnestly and peace- 
 ably for their abolition, obeying them meanwhile. It is not enough 
 to say that the maker of the bad law is more to blame than the 
 breaker. That is true ; yet the general principle of obedience 
 to law is one too valuable to be broken, in any case, unless where 
 a positively wrong act is commanded to be done. Happily our 
 reforms in the last thirty years have tolerably reconciled our laws 
 with common sense and common fairness ; but I ask, and have a 
 right to ask, to be judged by the ordinary practice thirty years 
 ago, when the occurrence took place. 
 
 * The officer, who had been a clerk in the Customs, suggested to the Board 
 that the clerks were more numerous than necessary. On inquiry this was found 
 to be true, and the reduction extended to himself; as a compensation, he was sent 
 
 to Brighton as a searcher. This I learned afterwards from Commissioner R . 
 
 So ignorant was this person of his duty, that I was forced to ask him for the 
 tariff, and to teach him the difference between things contraband and those paying 
 duty. He would have charged, but for my interference, a poor French mechanic 
 for three or four books printed in England. Some trifling things were stolen 
 from us on this occasion by the lower officials, but no redress could be had. 
 
10 
 
 After this confession I may be allowed to say how restitu- 
 tion was made. Some years later, I imported a theodolite from 
 Munich, and applied to the Treasury to have it free of duty. The 
 reply not coming as early as I expected, and the Customs officers 
 assuring me that leave would not be granted, I paid the duty. A 
 few days afterwards I received permission to bring in my circle 
 duty free, and applied to the Custom-house for repayment ; but the 
 refunding what had been once received, was so repugnant to the 
 usages of the establishment, that I gave it up. As the Munich 
 circle was worth the Jecker's circle at least thrice over, I con- 
 sider the Customs to have been no losers by me. 
 
 I have already mentioned that the instrument was delivered 
 
 directly by Mr. to Troughton, and I am as certain of this 
 
 as I can be of anything which I don't positively recollect. I 
 am sure it did not pass previously through my hands. I re- 
 member, most distinctly, that I learned from Troughton's own 
 mouth, how Jecker had executed my commission of engraving his 
 name. There was no need of erasure, he said, for Jecker had 
 engraved his own name and then screwed over it a small plate 
 with his (Troughton's) name. He said, too, that the work was 
 better than the French work he had formerly seen (I am pretty sure 
 we had not then heard of Gambey, and that Troughton alluded to 
 Fortin's circles), but that he did not like it well enough to adopt 
 it as his own.* 
 
 Now this is all that passed between Troughton and myself on 
 this matter, I am positive ; and as I am sure he never said 
 knowingly anything that was untrue, I assert that the additions 
 with which Sir James has garnished my simple story are the 
 coinage of his own "base and bitter" imagination. I had nothing 
 to do personally with the introduction of the instrument. I 
 never applied to Troughton to procure me false evidence (he was 
 certainly one of the last men to apply to in such a case) nor to 
 any one else, nor did I take any step to procure the admission of 
 the instrument, either by myself or through any other person, 
 beyond what I have already stated. I give the most flat and 
 positive contradiction to Sir James' " recollections ;" and if I do 
 not repeat the still more offensive word which escaped from me 
 when I first heard from Mr. Babbage what I am charged with, it is 
 because I don't know the mental state of Sir James at the time he 
 published this story. He might 
 
 " Like one 
 
 Who having, unto truth, by telling of it, 
 Made such a sinner of his memory 
 To credit his own lie," 
 
 * As an illustration of the proverb " Cheating never thrives," I may men- 
 tion that this unlucky circle was immediately seen to be unfit for the delicate pur- 
 poses for which I designed it, and I am not sure that I ever made an observation 
 with it. Some years afterwards, it was pulled to pieces in order to use the 
 limb for a heliostat ; and I believe that, for the last twenty years, if in exist- 
 ence at all, it has formed a part of the lumber of Mr. Simms's factory. 
 
11 
 
 really liave believed in 1852 what he had no suspicion of in 1824, 
 nor some years later. 
 
 To gentlemen who know me and Sir James South, I, perhaps, 
 need not say any more ; he asserts, and I deny, utri creditis 
 Romani. But I will propose to Sir James a few inconsistencies, 
 and I will trouble him or his ally, Mr. Babbage, to clear them up. 
 
 He says, and I suppose Mr. Babbage believes him (we are all 
 agreed, I fancy, to grant implicit credit to Troughton), that I 
 proposed to Troughton to lend me a man to declare the circle 
 of British origin, which Troughton most indignantly refused.* 
 He also says that Troughton, " a few days afterwards," re- 
 peated this fit of virtuous indignation ; but now, in the presence 
 of the offensive circle, which was quietly occupying a place 
 in Troughtoris shop. Though Sir James does not tell his story 
 very clearly, the meaning must be, that I applied to Troughton 
 (the circle being in limbo) to assist me to liberate it by a false oath, 
 that he most indignantly refused, that I then got it out myself, by 
 making a false declaration, personally or by proxy, and then sent 
 it to Troughton as if nothing disagreeable had happened ; that 
 he took it in with the same nonchalance, reserving to himself the 
 privilege of venting his indignation in big words to Sir James 
 South. It is now many years since Troughton died, but some 
 of the gentlemen I am addressing may remember enough of 
 him to judge whether he could have acted thus inconsistently 
 and weakly. I ask, too, whether such an imputation on Troughton 
 can be rendered probable by such a witness as Sir James South, 
 twenty-eight years afterwards ? 
 
 In addition to these inconsistencies, I think people who 
 know me will not find any compatibility between the language 
 said to have been used to me and my subsequent conduct. I cer- 
 tainly never was addressed in any such terms as those which, 
 according to Sir James, were applied to me by Troughton ; but I 
 think, though not very implacable, I should have given a very 
 wide berth indeed, for the future, to the man who had used such 
 language to me. 
 
 An account of the subsequent relations between Troughton 
 and myself will, I think, throw still further discredit on Sir 
 James South's late recollections, and show that he has put words 
 into his "old friend's" mouth, which his old friend would no more 
 have uttered " than he would have bitten off his tongue," if I may 
 be allowed to adopt Sir James's style. 
 
 I am pretty positive, from a number of circumstances, that 
 Jecker's circle was introduced into this country early in 1824. 
 I suppose, therefore, the date of the reported conversations was 
 about February that year, not long before Sir James South 
 took up his temporary residence in France. One of Sir James* 
 
 * I go further : my vigorous and high-spirited old friend would have kicked 
 any one out of his shop who had made such a dishonourable and insulting pro- 
 posal ; and would have repeated the process, toties guoties, if the scoundrel who 
 made it had shown himself there again. 
 
12 
 
 favourite projects was to induce his " revered friend " his 
 "almost second parent" to visit him in the summer of the 
 same year, only a few months after the imaginary conversa- 
 tions. Is it not somewhat strange or, rather, would it not 
 be strange, if Sir James's story were true that Troughton 
 would only consent to pay this visit, on condition I would accom- 
 pany him and take him in charge? He was then about seventy, 
 rather infirm, very deaf, and not speaking or understanding a 
 word of French. I am certain that Sir James South himself 
 very strongly pressed me to undertake this journey, and I am 
 almost certain that I was invited to take up my abode with him 
 at Passy. Troughton and I did accordingly journey together 
 most amicably to Paris and back again ; and so satisfied was he 
 with his companion, that, on a later occasion, he refused to go to 
 Oxford, unless I would again escort him, which I did. 
 
 As Troughton and I could not see St. Denis on our return, on 
 account of the funeral ceremonies of Louis XVIII. as I remem- 
 ber, moreover, my disgust at being compelled to get a black suit 
 for the general mourning (Sir James kindly recommending the 
 tailor) I can date our visit very nearly ; it must have been about 
 the end of September 1824.* 
 
 After our return from Paris (Troughton smuggled three or 
 four bandanas for me, which, as he took snuff, was a con- 
 venience to both), Troughton got my consent to propose me for the 
 Astronomical Society. I was proposed November 12, 1824, elected 
 January 14, 1825, and immediately placed on the Council, February 
 11, 1825, most probably on his representation. I have been asked 
 if Sir James signed my certificate ; he did not ; he was then 
 residing at Passy. f It is, perhaps, a better mark of the value 
 Troughton set upon me that he introduced me to his very dear * 
 friend, the late Astronomer Royal, Mr. Pond, whose confidence I 
 may say I possessed, and tried to deserve. 
 
 That Troughton's regard for me did, in some respects, go 
 
 * I will here add a trifling circumstance, which, to some minds, may have a 
 little weight. Though Sir James was in England shortly before our visit, he was 
 unreasonable enough to ask Troughton to carry over a pointer, instead of taking 
 it himself. I should have declined such a troublesome commission ; b'ut Trough- 
 ton had accepted it, and the dog was in his keeping before I knew anything of 
 the matter. As he assured me the dog knew him, I gave an unwilling assent, and 
 Dido with her basket was strapped on our carriage. But the dog neither knew 
 him, nor anything, nor anybody else, and gave me infinite trouble and anxiety 
 on the road. Now as Sir James must have known the unfitness of Troughton to 
 take care even of himself, and, therefore, that the dog must fall entirely to my 
 charge, is the liberty he took with me in harmony with the conversations which 
 are supposed to have occurred only a few months before ? 
 
 t I have been asked whether Sir James South signed my certificate as a can- 
 didate for the Royal Society. He did not, neither did Bdily or Pond (both of 
 whom were members of the Council that year), or Troughton. It is clear I 
 could have asked no one, as these names are omitted. I should never have 
 applied to Sir James in any case, but at the date of my certificate, Jan. 14, 1830, 
 he had been (as President of the Astronomical) under my guardianship for nearly 
 a year. He was, moreover, at this time in bad odour with the Royal Society, 
 though the Thirty-nine Charges were not printed till some months later. 
 
13 
 
 beyond my merits, I freely allow. He once told me that he had 
 known only three people who handled an instrument to his liking 
 Pond, Kater, and myself. Now this praise was, undoubtedly, 
 rather an expression of liking than strictly just. But I listened 
 to him attentively, and understood and discussed his various con- 
 structions with interest, and so, perhaps, passed for a more handy 
 person than I really was. 
 
 My intimacy with Troughton suffered no interruption from 
 my coolness with Sir James South. The quarrel between 
 Troughton and Sir James, with respect to the great equatoreal, 
 was thoroughly established, I think, in the latter end of 1832. 
 Calling one day in Fleet Street, I found the old man somewhat 
 discomposed; and he then (after remarking that I was, probably, 
 surprised that he and Sir James had continued friends so long) 
 placed in my hands some letters, from which I concluded that 
 the quarrel was not to be made up. 
 
 After some consideration, I now thought it my duty to in- 
 terfere. Troughton was too old and infirm to do anything effectual 
 in the business : Mr. Simms, his partner, was too much engaged, 
 and was, besides, too sensitive to deal with such a rude 
 customer. It was clear no light would come from the science of 
 Campden Hill ; and I felt that, without some assistance, my old 
 friend Troughton, who had been almost forced into this under- 
 taking by the importunities of Sir James, and my younger friend, 
 Mr. Simms, who had merely executed what Troughton and 
 Sir James directed, would be " done " out of their money, worried 
 to death by impertinent letters, and probably professionally injured 
 by the scandal of Sir James and his allies and toadies. I had some 
 confidence in my own skill, but my chief reliance was on Mr. Airy; 
 and my hope was, that a person of fair intelligence, with abundant 
 leisure, would be able to extract help from different quarters, and 
 to combine the whole to purpose. And this I succeeded in doing, 
 as far as Sir James would permit ; at last he closed his doors, 
 refusing to pay or to allow the instrument to be put in working 
 order, though we undertook that this should be done at our 
 expense. 
 
 I know that my services in this long and troublesome busi- 
 ness were duly valued by both Troughton and his partner. When 
 I showed the instrument in a merely temporary state to Troughton, 
 he said it was very nearly as good as he ever expected it to be, 
 though the bracing consisted merely of a few pieces of quartering, 
 and the clock was of the rudest description. The only remark 
 which he made during the contest was, that I had not acted with 
 sufficient vigour towards Sir James. " You should have arrested 
 him," he said ; " the fellow has a white feather. Frasi arrested 
 him, and got paid." I suppose I shall not be greatly blamed for 
 preventing the arrest of Sir James, considering the terms on which 
 Troughton and he had long been ; besides, whatever may be the 
 colour of Sir James's feather, I did not see how forcing him to 
 
14 
 
 get bail would advance matters. It would have been an insult, 
 nothing more. 
 
 Some objections have been taken to my interfering at all, and 
 also to the manner of my interference, but I think unfairly. It is 
 the opinion of all persons conversant with the parties, that Sir 
 James would not have paid except on compulsion; and that no 
 one except myself could have been found to carry this compulsory 
 process into execution. I myself have no doubt of this. The 
 verdict pronounced by Mr. (since Mr. Justice) Maule,* who was 
 arbitrator in the case, gave us every shilling that we claimed, thus 
 declaring the justice of our demand. One portion of the expense, 
 amounting, if I remember rightly, to about 200/., which was for 
 additions and alterations directed by me, was, by agreement, only 
 to be paid if effectual. Now the arbitrator had the instrument 
 exhibited to him for some hours on a fine night, and therefore 
 was able in a considerable measure to form his own opinion inde- 
 pendent of the evidence. The verdict, therefore, establishes the 
 utility and efficacy of my alterations, they were paid for. 
 
 Before commencing my examination of the instrument, I stipu- 
 lated that I should not, when at work, be interrupted by Sir James 
 South. I knew he was too ignorant to be of any use, had he 
 been disposed to be so and I disposed to consult him. I felt, too, 
 that his strutting about the room, whistling at the same time 
 most untunably, would not aid me in the working out a difficult 
 problem. Besides these very sufficient reasons, I wished to prevent 
 silly letters to the "Times," which he would certainly have sent 
 apropos of everything he either did not understand or misunder- 
 stood. This necessary precaution he chose to interpret as a barring 
 him out of his own observatory; and I have been told that, when he 
 opened the door of the dome for visitors, he kept himself ostenta- 
 tiously back. Indeed he made this supposed condition the subject 
 of an attack in the "Times" newspaper, in which he alleged that 
 he had been excluded from his observatory by " ecclesiastical 
 malevolence." This absurd phrase was, of course, unintelligible; 
 and Sir James was obliged, in a second letter, to name me as the 
 " malevolence." I rather think he thought it necessary to assure 
 the Bishops, seriatim, that the blow was not meant for them, 
 and I could, perhaps, have got hold of one of these curious circu- 
 lars ; but I avoided the temptation of being induced to prosecute a 
 man for whom I felt myself more than a match at his own weapon. 
 
 * Perhaps the most important service I rendered to Messrs. Troughton and 
 Simms was by insisting that Mr. Maule should be the arbitrator, if the cause 
 were withdrawn from a jury. I had no personal acquaintance with this gentle- 
 man, but I knew that he was the crack senior wrangler of his time, and in the 
 opinion of many persons, the man most likely to have been the Laplace of Eng- 
 land if he had devoted himself to pure science. The readiness with which the 
 arbitrator caught all the mechanical points, though the subject was perfectly new 
 to him, and the quick manner in which he detected an erroneous conclusion 
 which had escaped us, and thus furnished the explanation of an important 
 experiment, convinced me that his Trinity reputation was not exaggerated. 
 
15 
 
 In the correspondence which followed this outbreak, I have no 
 reason to think that Sir James had the advantage, and I got the 
 last word. 
 
 I have been accused of keeping up the irritation in Trough- 
 ton's mind against Sir James ; and Mr. Babbage and Sir James 
 South probably think so, as it is just what they would have done 
 in my place. But the suspicion is altogether untrue. I had no 
 need to exasperate Troughton, and when he went beyond what I 
 thought was true in his diatribes, I expressed my dissent. Upon 
 one occasion he called Sir James a "deep, designing knave; who 
 had shown great anxiety about his health, but he now believed 
 merely for a selfish end." I replied, that I did not think so ; that 
 I believed Sir James once had a sincere regard for him. I own 
 that when Troughton called Sir James " a dirty rascal," I offered 
 no opposition. 
 
 Troughton died in 1835, before the trial was decided, and left 
 me an executor of his will, with Mr. Simms and a relative. Mr. 
 Simms and I had the pleasure of putting an end to a foolish mis- 
 understanding among the legatees, which might have easily led 
 to a Chancery suit, had we not allayed their temper, and that of our 
 co-executor. Finally, I employed the larger part of a small legacy, 
 which Troughton left me, in a monument to his memory ; and 
 though I made no professions of " veneration," and never adopted 
 him as "a father," nor made after-dinner speeches in his honour 
 at seasonable and unseasonable times, I am satisfied I was a friend 
 far more to be desired than Sir James South. 
 
 I fancy that I have said quite enough already, to convince every 
 person who knew Troughton, that the conversations reported in 
 the Mechanics' Magazine are the coinage of Sir James South's 
 brain. I shall now try to show that this calumny is compara- 
 tively of recent origin, and that Sir James himself did not believe 
 it for at least ten, perhaps twenty, years after my unlucky circle 
 had been honoured, as he says, by Troughton's salute. 
 
 My acquaintance with Mr. South, for I have had very little to 
 say to Sir James, must have commenced before his visit to France, 
 for I remember that I was several times at his house in the 
 Borough, where I was always most hospitably welcomed. Pro- 
 bably we became acquainted at Troughton's, on whom each of us 
 frequently called. I conceive that this acquaintance must have 
 commenced in 1823, but I cannot recollect anything to show that I 
 visited in Blackman Street after the scene in Fleet Street so gra- 
 phically described by Sir James,* though I have no doubt that I 
 did. But after that event and not long after as I have already 
 said, he urged me very pressingly to take charge of Troughton on 
 a visit to him at Passy, and, I believe, to take up my abode in his 
 house ; which I declined. As I was a frequent guest at Passy, 
 
 * I have a dim recollection that Sir James did not return to the Borough 
 after he had lived in Paris, but I cannot at present remember anything which 
 would give me a date. I never visited him in Sloane Street. 
 
16 
 
 and as Sir James saw no impropriety in introducing me to all his 
 guests, consisting of the elite of the savans of Paris, he could 
 scarcely at that time have believed the story which he has since 
 made public. It may, perhaps, be alleged that, in his desire to 
 compliment Troughton, he put a force on his feelings : those who 
 like to think so may, but those who best know him scarcely 
 will. 
 
 On Sir James's return to England, though our acquaintance 
 continued, and we were familiar when we met, I don't think I 
 visited him often, though I am pretty sure I have dined with him 
 at Campden Hill, and quite certain that I have been invited 
 and declined. Indeed, I began gradually to get ashamed of his 
 turbulent and quarrelsome behaviour to other persons (to myself 
 he never was otherwise than respectful and attentive), and to doubt 
 whether I had a right to keep neutral. In the trial about the 
 equatoreal, Sir James spoke of me as one " whom he once thought 
 his friend," but this was not correct. I was an acquaintance, 
 and a tolerably familiar acquaintance, but I eschewed his confi- 
 dence and never gave him mine. In February, 1829, Sir James was 
 elected President of the Astronomical Society, chiefly, I think, on 
 the pressing recommendation of three members, one of whom, 
 Lieutenant Stratford, then urged my appointment as Secretary, to 
 keep the President in order. This disagreeable office I endeavoured 
 to execute, and I believe witti some eifect ; but assuredly this 
 strange official relation caused some unpleasant feeling on both 
 sides, though I am bound in candour to admit that Sir James 
 bore my tutelage, on the whole, very tolerably.* The business, 
 
 * Sir James South found out very early in our acquaintance that if he did not 
 mean to realise the fate of the earthen pot, he must not jar too rudely on me. 
 He knew nothing, and was well aware that he knew nothing ; and he knew, besides, 
 that I had no difficulty and not much scruple in setting him right when he got 
 out of his depth, which was very often. Sir James does not know a sine from a 
 cosine, and is not able to use a table of logarithms for the simplest computation. 
 The solution of a plane triangle is quite out of his reach. His acquaintance with 
 the principles of astronomical instruments only extends to some half-dozen 
 precepts of Troughton's ; which he practises, probably, without understanding. 
 I do not believe he could ascertain the errors of adjustment in a transit ; 
 he would have to correct the errors by actually altering the screws, and by 
 successive bisection of the apparent errors. Troughton's account was, that he 
 attempted the " Asses' bridge," but could not cross it. Fallows said (so I was 
 told by Dr. Pearson) that he never could teach him the difference belween + and 
 : but this I hold to be only figurative. I heard Sir James swear that he could 
 solve, or had solved, a quadratic equation, sed non ego credulus ; perhaps he 
 learned the rule by heart. His mechanical knowledge used to be pretty much on a 
 par with his mathematics. He had a good eye, nice hand, great boldness, and at one 
 time much energy and industry; and as he bought excellent instruments, and 
 worked under able direction, his observations have considerable value, though 
 they are not such as would be deemed first-rate now. But Sir James South's 
 reputation rests chiefly on another foundation. He gave many dinners, boasted 
 himself before ignorant people, abused his betters in the newspapers and in 
 pamphlets, published the works of others as his own, and physicked the wives 
 and children of his acquaintance. If I am provoked, and think it worth while, I 
 may some day execute an analysis of Sir James South's publications, giving his 
 due to each contributor, and extending my list of Southland. 
 
17 
 
 however, was so irksome to me, that in February, 1831, I quitted 
 the Council, assigning openly as my reason that I was too busy 
 to attend, but telling my particular friends that I had belled the 
 cat long enough, and was tired of such hangman's work. Imme- 
 diately afterwards I was engaged in an open quarrel with Sir 
 James; and as the circumstances were only incompletely known 
 at the time, and have some interest in the history of the Astro- 
 nomical Society, I will relate them here as briefly as I can. 
 
 In the second year of Sir James's Presidency a wish was ex- 
 pressed by several members of our body that the Society should be 
 incorporated, and after some discussion it was agreed that a peti- 
 tion should be presented for that purpose. There was to be 
 only one petitioner, to save fees ; and as Sir James was President 
 it was agreed that he should be the petitioner.* 
 
 From delays, caused by the President alone., this Charter, which 
 the Society had agreed to in or before June 1830, was not signed 
 till March 7, 1831; many months after the time expected; and 
 alter Sir James South's Presidency had terminated, which it did in 
 the preceding month. Now the Charter contained the following 
 clause : That the members of the Council shall be elected within 
 six calendar months after the date of this new Charter; and that 
 the said Sir James South shall be the first President." This clause 
 which was inserted in full confidence that the Charter would be 
 signed before November (as it might have well been, but for the 
 laches of the President), became a stumbling-block when the 
 Bishop of Cloyne had been duly elected in February 1831, and 
 actually filled the chair. 
 
 Everybody would suppose there could be no real difficulty; that 
 T dames South, who had been honoured so far above his merits 
 
 * With one or two others, I objected in the Council to a Charter ; but gave 
 way, par ly convinced, to the majority. At the evening meeting, Sir James as 
 President communicated the matter to the Society, but in such bad t^and 
 with so little motive, that some of the members-the late Captain Basil Hall was 
 one-asked for an explanation why a Charter was to be desired. The Presf 
 dent s reply was of the dignified kind,-- that he did not sit there to answer 
 
 t^i^rS^ t 1 r satisfacto ^ so1 -VgorL" 
 
 tuicuiy i rninK, to nis rescue, and produced reasons which whether frond or harl 
 prevented any breach of harmony. 
 
 I must leaven this expression of self- compliment, by admitting a gross breach 
 of duty on this occasion, from a foolish feeling of false delicacy. I ought not to 
 have allowed Sir James to be the petitioner, and it would hav^ been quite suffi- 
 cient to have named Francis Baily ; there would have been no opposition Dr 
 waTnTt thenTS! Astronomical Society, in 1812 I believe, but the time 
 
 Sl ^ 1 So . cie \ h ' ad P repared the way ; liTdYe^the J^TfoundefoT the 
 
 existing Society. Sir James South was an early, but not, so far as I can 
 
 make out a conspicuous member. After Sir John Herschel, Mr. Babbage 
 
 appears to have been Mr. Baily's most active supporter; while Dr. Pearson and 
 
 Troughton were very effective coadjutors and canvassers/but rather on thrown 
 
 hook and m heir own way. The Charter of the Royal Astronomical Socie:y, 
 
 which says that Sir James South, together with others of our loyal ubiectl 
 
 i the year 1820 form themselves into a Society," must be understood as I 
 
 reTatbn ^ ^ Ifc is not false ' but mi S ht S 1 e to an erroneous inter- 
 
18 
 
 as to be elected President, and to have been appointed sole petitioner 
 (passing over Baily, who really had formed the Society), and who, 
 moreover, by his own carelessness, created the hitch, everybody, I 
 repeat, would suppose that Sir James, of course, put himself imme- 
 diately into the hands of the Council, and offered his utmost exertions 
 to set everything straight. But he did nothing of the kind ; he 
 kept out of the way, made no arrangement, and said, in his 
 swaggering way, that the Society was in a confounded scrape, 
 and that if he chose, he need not call a Council for six months.''' 
 All this I heard from Troughton ; and, though I was no longer a 
 member of the Council, I went immediately to Lieutenant Strat- 
 ford to inquire into the state of affairs. I think this must have 
 been on the llth of March. From him I learned that the 
 Charter had just been signed, and was in his possession, but that 
 Sir James should not have it till he came to some reasonable 
 terms. I explained to Stratford that the Charter belonged to 
 Sir James, and must be sent forthwith, assuring him that it 
 could be of no effect until we the Society accepted it. There 
 was, I believe, rather a stormy meeting at the Council on March 
 11, where Sir James went after he had received the Charter; but 
 it was finally agreed that the Charter should be accepted by 
 calling Sir James to the chair, and that the meeting should imme- 
 diately proceed to re-elect the Bishop of Cloyne as President and 
 the existing Council : also that the immediate consideration of the 
 bye-laws, which Sir James objected to, should be postponed, 
 although notice had been given that they would be proposed. 
 
 At the evening meeting, the Secretary, Mr. De Morgan, 
 stated the course of proceeding which had been agreed upon, 
 when Sir James, in violation, as I have always understood, of 
 his express engagement (supposing that he was in his sober 
 senses at the time, and was cognisant of what he had promised), 
 rose up and made a rambling speech, thanking God that he was a 
 man of honour, and much to the like purpose. The meeting, 
 which was wholly ignorant of the underplot, wished to proceed to 
 accept the Charter ; while those who knew Sir James better, ob- 
 jected to destroy the old Society before they had provided for its 
 resuscitation and re-organisation. I do not to this hour know 
 what object Sir James had in view when he made this speech, 
 and, perhaps, he knew as little ; for when I asked him to say 
 what he wanted, he replied by stating that the meeting was not 
 legal, for the notices had been sent out a day too late ;\ a fit and 
 appropriate return for Mr.- Stratford's thoughtless delicacy. This 
 objection stayed the whole proceedings ; and the breach of faith so 
 much irritated the Council, that at its next meeting, March 19 
 
 * It is not very safe to impute motives, but the only motive I can assign for 
 Sir James's behaviour is, that he expected the Council, to escape the difficulty, 
 would offer him a second term of office for six months, or, perhaps, longer. I 
 leave this explanation to him. 
 
 f The notices were signed in due time, but Lieutenant Stratford delayed posting 
 the letters for twenty-four hours, that he might call on Sir James and explain and 
 conciliate matters. 
 
19 
 
 (the last Sir James ever attended), he found that he had gone too 
 far. So fresh notices were issued, and on the 6th of April fol- 
 lowing, Sir James being proclaimed three times, and not appear- 
 ing, Mr. Bryan Donkin was called to the chair, the bye -laws 
 were passed, and the existing President and Council re-elected, 
 with some exceptions. 
 
 I had been so much annoyed by Sir James's extraordinary 
 conduct, and the trouble he had given the Society, that I told 
 Lieut. Stratford I should object to Sir James's re-election as a 
 member of the Council. I said I should bring forward my objec- 
 tions under two heads : 1st, that from his ignorance he could 
 not give good counsel ; and 2ndly, that from his infirmity of mind 
 he could not keep good counsel. After some discussion, however, 
 and on a representation that such an onslaught on the late 
 President might injure the Society and annoy some persons whom I 
 respected, I said I would be satisfied without any direct exposure, 
 if Sir James's name were withdrawn from the Council. This was 
 accordingly done ; and as my objection to serve no longer existed, 
 I consented to occupy his vacant place.* 
 
 Sir James gave the R. A. Society no symptom of his exist- 
 ence till the General Meeting of February 14, 1834, when he 
 came down, and, in one of his usual speeches, 
 
 " A tale 
 
 Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 
 Signifying nothing, "f 
 
 proposed that the gold medal should be given to Lieut. Stratford, 
 the Editor of the Nautical Almanac, for the production of that 
 work. The Council, in which the Superintendent had many very 
 warm friends, would most gladly have given him their medal, if it 
 could have been done without breaking all their usual rules ; so 
 the Secretary quietly answered by pointing out the objections to 
 such an appointment, and by calling Sir James's notice to the 
 fact, that the bye-laws, about which he had formerly made such a 
 fuss, placed the distribution of the medal exclusively in the hands of 
 the Council. I followed on the same side, when Sir James ex- 
 cepted to my remarks as personal and out of order. The Chair- 
 man overruled him, and I was proceeding with my task of casti- 
 gation, when Sir James could bear it no longer, and hobbled out 
 of the room ; and so it is only with some allowance I can say 
 with the orator, Abiit, evasit, erupit. As it was necessary to 
 stop such nuisances, I moved a vote of censure, in the shape of 
 an amendment, which was carried nem, con., Sir James's seconder 
 holding up his hand with the rest. 
 
 * See the Appendix No. II., in which I have given the minutes of Council and 
 of the Special General Meetings. 
 
 f Sir James's oratory and delivery is of the purest British lion stamp a 
 tissue of claptraps and nonsense, most energetically pronounced, and with a 
 remarkable emphasis on the letter r. But you have only to look at him and con- 
 tradict him, and he is a lost lion. * . - 
 
20 
 
 The first effect of this signal defeat was, I believe, rather 
 stunning ; but in a few days, Sir James, who, like his brother- 
 knight, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, if he redeems opinion in any way, 
 conceives " it must be with valour," hit upon the bright idea that 
 he might insult the mover and seconder of the amendment. I, 
 the mover, might be safely disregarded ; and Mr. Frend, whom 
 he took erroneously to be the seconder, was so old and so prudent 
 a man, that he, too, was not dangerous. He threatened Mr. 
 Frend, therefore, " that he would expose him, though with great 
 regret" (I think the exposition was to be to all Europe), " for the 
 share he had taken in the aifair." Luckily for Sir James, before 
 he committed any overt act, he learned that my seconder was 
 Captain, now Admiral Smyth ;* and the exposition was no more 
 heard of. 
 
 Since that defeat Sir James South has not troubled the 
 Royal Astronomical Society ; and if there be any members who 
 regret his absence, I can only repeat the remark of the noisy 
 musician, who refused sixpence to move on (his fee being a shil- 
 ling), " They don't know the walue of peace and quietness." 
 
 I think it will be admitted that I hud now given Sir James 
 South sufficient provocation to set loose his tongue, if he had any 
 disgraceful charge to make against me. But before this time 
 he had " more dirt to eat," and partly at my hands. Probably 
 some of the visitors will remember our encounters at the Board. 
 I will here express my regret that, from the character of my 
 opponent, I was compelled to be somewhat ruder of speech than 
 would have been otherwise respectful to the Board. " You must 
 flay a Russian," it is said, " to make him feel," and Sir James's 
 powers of apprehension are of Russian coarseness. It must 
 not be overlooked, either, that I was defending my friend the 
 Astronomer Royal, Pond, who was worn out and in delicate health, 
 from the attacks of a person who had not the least notion of Pond's 
 merits and services, arid who could no more have given an account 
 of the system of observation pursued at Greenwich, than he could 
 compute a place of the moon. But though I did my honest endea- 
 vours to make Sir James's situation unpleasant to him, I cannot 
 claim the merit of driving him away. It was the calm and dignified 
 rebuke of the Duke of Sussex which delivered us from our astro- 
 nomical Trouble-all. Still not a word of the supposed conversa- 
 tions with Troughton. 
 
 And now came the quarrel between Sir James and his 
 
 * Extract from the Minutes of General Meeting of the Royal Astronomical 
 
 Society, Feb. 14, 1834. 
 
 " A motion was made by Sir James South, and seconded by Mr. Hubert, 
 ' That Lieutenant Stratford, as Superintendent of the Nautical Almanac, is 
 entitled to the sincere thanks of the Society; and as a pledge of their sincerity, 
 this Meeting begs to recommend to the Council that he be presented with the 
 Society's gold medal.' To which motion an amendment was moved by the 
 Rev. Mr. Sheepshanks, and seconded by Captain Smyth: 'That the Society 
 regrets the irregularity of the preceding motion, and hopes that it may not be 
 repeated.' Which motion was carried unanimously." 
 
21 
 
 " revered" friend Troughton, in which I took so active a part. I 
 wrote the answers to Sir James South's letters,* which answers 
 cannot be properly understood without taking my motives into 
 account. I wished to keep him as quiet as might be, and to 
 prevent any printing. His cacoethes of scribbling and printing 
 was very distasteful to me. At the same time I comforted 
 Troughton, encouraged Mr. Simms, and allayed the tempers of 
 both, when they were tried beyond their endurance. Assisted by 
 the advice of Mr. Airy and Mr. Donkin, Mr. Simms and I in- 
 vestigated the defects of the instrument (which had baffled the 
 science of Campden Hillf), and discovered the remedies, which we 
 then proposed to Sir James on the condition, that if they failed, 
 we were to make no claim for that part of the expense. 
 
 Upon these conditions we proceeded to brace the polar axis ; 
 and though we were turned out before our work was completed, 
 and though the object-glass was refused, we were completely 
 successful (as far as we went) in curing the main fault, the ten- 
 dency to twist. 
 
 Then followed another correspondence, but now Sir James 
 prudently resigned his pen to his attorney, a very fair man I dare 
 say, but who could know nothing about the astronomical part of 
 the subject, and only so much of the moral part as Sir James 
 chose to tell him. 
 
 Our proposition was, that we would put the instrument into 
 working order at our own expense; that it should then be used by 
 gentlemen of the first reputation, agreed upon by both sides, who 
 should decide upon its merits. This offer, though frequently 
 repeated, was constantly refused. My belief is, that Sir James 
 felt the decision would be adverse, and that he preferred to risk 
 the chances of the law. 
 
 Troughton died while the suit was going on, and my conduct 
 on the trial was more provoking than ever. I deposed positively 
 
 * Sir James printed this correspondence, but never published it ; perhaps he 
 made out that it would do him no service. From a loose sheet which I acci- 
 dentally saw, he had mixed the letters with affidavits, &c. If I thought he would 
 understand the appeal, I should call upon him either to publish or to satisfy 
 me that the printed sheets were destroyed. I have been blamed for writing these 
 letters, and writing underhand. I mentioned the fact to some common acquaint- 
 ance Mr. Baily, I recollect, and I took for granted that the knowledge would 
 pass to Sir James. There certainly was no concealment intended ; and 1 did not 
 write to inform Sir James, thinking it would look like a threat or insult. A good- 
 natured, but not very discreet, friend, to whom portions of this correspondence 
 had been read over the table at Campden Hill, assured me that he did not think 
 them proper letters to have been addressed by tradesmen to a gentleman. " They 
 are nothing of the kind," was my reply ; " they are the letters of two honourable 
 artists to a shabby, shuffling debtor." I fancy this natural view never occurred to 
 people over Sir James's Wine and Walnuts. 
 
 f In justice to Mr. Simms, I must say that he had no opportunity for con- 
 sidering the instrument carefully until I had secured our undisturbed access. 
 " Why don't you try so and so ?" I once asked ; and he replied, that he could try 
 nothing and think of nothing at Campden Hill ; for that the moment he arrived, 
 
 Sir James and his family, and Mr. ^and the little dogs, all opened upon him 
 
 at once, and fairly distracted him. 
 
22 
 
 to the most essential quality of the polar axis, that it did not twist ; I 
 sorted and arranged the evidence and the cross-examination, Mr. 
 Starkie, our advocate, taking up the matter most zealously, and 
 giving me frequent friendly consultations. There is no vanity in 
 saying that I spared Mr. Simms much worry, our attorneys almost 
 all responsibility, and Mr. Starkie most of his trouble ; and that 
 if my evidence could have been tainted, my character compromised, 
 or my personal attendance got rid of, the advantage to Sir James 
 would have been immense.* Supposing the conversations re- 
 ported in the Mechanics' Magazine to have been true, Sir James 
 South could easily have embroiled Troughton and me by pub- 
 lishing them. Troughton was not a man to deny anything he had 
 once said (Sir James, I think, dare not contradict me), and every 
 'one will see that I could scarcely have continued to be the con- 
 fidential adviser of a man who had thus covered me with infamy. 
 I conclude, therefore, that Sir James South's inventions are not 
 anterior to Troughton's death; and I conceive every sane person, 
 who has got a better head than a pin, will agree with me. 
 
 After Troughton's death all delicacy ceased if, indeed, Sir 
 James was ever troubled by such trifles, and then I might have 
 been assailed, but I was not. $ 
 
 It is true that Sir James South's recollection of conversations 
 which had passed between himself and his " revered " friend be- 
 came much more vivid after that friend's decease. He insisted so 
 strongly on being examined as a witness, to depose to certain con- 
 versations, that the arbitrator consented, with the quiet remark, 
 that a man's evidence in his own cause could not be allowed to 
 reckon for much. Sir James tried to prove a sort of guarantee 
 from a conversation between Troughton and himself, after the 
 instrument was made, to the effect that it should be in every 
 respect as good and manageable as his five-foot equatoreal ; but I 
 don't think any one believed him, and I am sure that Troughton 
 never said anything which could bear so absurd a meaning, though 
 , he may have used some encouraging expressions to Sir James, 
 at a time when his faith had been somewhat shaken. \ 
 
 * In my cross-examination, which was in Troughton's lifetime, there was an 
 excellent opportunity for introducing the attempt to suborn perjury ; an oppor- 
 tunity which no lawyer or client would have let slip, if it had been true. 
 
 t When the large equatoreal was in a forward state, many of Sir James 
 South's friends found fault with it, and frightened him; hut not, I think, till the 
 chief cost had been incurred. I think it not improbable that the words which Sir 
 Jumes considered a guarantee were spoken at such a time. I have a little doubt 
 whether Captain Beaufort was present or no. There was a strong attempt to 
 get him to depose to a guarantee, but he would not. Captain Beaufort's 
 evidence in chief was so perfectly fair, that, when it was over, Mr. Starkie 
 whispered to ms, " He is our evidence," and did not cross-examine. The 
 truth is, that Sir James and his "revered" friend were rather at cross-pur- 
 poses throughout. Troughton intended, as he told me before the instrument 
 was begun, to make a polar axis for the telescope ; the wood was to be of deal, 
 and the declination circle a few inches in diameter a mere finder. Sir James, 
 who interfered, and directed, and meddled, and altered throughout, was always 
 urging more expensive materials and work uselessly costly. " What would 
 
23 
 
 As it was desirable to show the arbitrator what sort of a man 
 we had for an opponent, Mr. Starkie cross-examined Sir James 
 with a view to trot him out, and with perfect success. I suggested 
 that he should be asked some questions about the reduction of 
 equatoreal observations, and he certainly had some notion of index 
 error; but when the question related to the corrections for parallax 
 and refraction, we elicited the spark I was anxious for. Sir James 
 exploded at once. " Quousque tandem, Catilina, abutere patientia 
 nostra : a man who has got every quality of Catiline but his 
 courage. I can perform those reductions as well as any man ; I 
 can perform them as well as the gentleman on your right" (I 
 was on Mr. Starkie's right). " Shut us up in a room together, 
 and I will prove it." I immediately said, " I accept the challenge, 
 Sir James ;" but I have vainly summoned him to make his boast- 
 ing good. Sir James finds it easier to return a letter unopened, 
 and to advertise the fact in the " Times," than to admit that he 
 said rashly and under excitement what was not true. 
 
 In Sir James South's evidence, he asserted that, when the 
 equatoreal was planned he proposed to Troughton to adopt Dol- 
 lond's construction in the Cambridge transit, to save expense. I 
 am certain that this is an untruth. From the time I first knew 
 Sir James up to March 1831, he was most hostile to Dollond,* 
 and it was one of his favourite employments to excite Troughton's 
 bile against that very excellent artist by his " tale-bearing " and 
 misrepresentation. Troughton, who was consulted about the in- 
 struments for the Cambridge Observatory, recommended that Dol- 
 lond should make the transit, on the same model and scale as the 
 Greenwich transit. For some reason or other, Dollond preferred 
 another construction, and some of the members of this Board may, 
 perhaps, recollect the fuss which Sir James made about the alter- 
 ation. He would have had the instrument returned to the artist 
 without trial, and spoke of the University as having disgraced 
 itself by tolerating such an insult to Troughton. 
 
 Now as to Troughton's method of fastening a transit together, 
 though it is very ingenious, it is not quite free from objection. I 
 have no reason to think it need have been more expensive than Dol- 
 lond's, if Sir James himself had not interfered and requested Mr. 
 Donkin to turn the inside of the central sphere, an expense which 
 
 Gambey say to that ?" was a common expression. He expressly ordered the centra] 
 sphere of the transit to be turned inside and out, as I heard at the time from Mr. 
 Donkin, who thought the expense useless. I was somewhat astonished to hear 
 Sir James's expectations, knowing what Troughton proposed. When I remarked 
 to him that the axis must bend, he seemed to think that Troughton would pre- 
 vent it. As his memory is so good, he may, perhaps, recollect my warning : 
 " Troughton can't alter the laws of Nature." 
 
 * Sir James, who was quite as anxious as Bob Acres to acquire a fighting 
 reputation, used to say, that he should have been forced to call Dollond out, if he 
 had been a gentleman ; a curious exception for Sir James to take with respect to 
 a man every way his superior. I never heard what was the cause of Sir James's 
 wrath, but after his quarrel with Fleet Street, Sir James was most anxious to be 
 received at St. Paul's Churchyard, and eat humble-pie accordingly. 
 
24 
 
 neither he nor Troughton thought necessary;* and I am quite 
 positive that Sir James never dreamed of any other construction 
 as admissible, until after his quarrel with Troughton. f 
 
 I could point out, I think, other untruths, more or^less de- 
 monstrable, but perfectly clear to me, in Sir James's examination 
 and cross-examination. I will only repeat an anecdote which 
 I heard from Mr. Simms soon after it happened, which will 
 show what credit is to be attached to Sir James's recollection 
 of conversations when less than thirty years have intervened. 
 
 Before the quarrel between Troughton and Sir James had be- 
 come declared, but when the latter was very much dissatisfied 
 with the great equatoreal, Mr. Simms went to Campden Hill to 
 explain some old accounts which Sir James wished to settle. On 
 passing through the observatory, Sir James remarked, pointing to 
 his transit, " Ah, Mr. Simms, what a pity it is the old gentleman 
 ever undertook an instrument after that ! " Very soon after, as 
 still further explanation was wanted, Mr. Simms went again to 
 Campden Hill, where he found Sir James and liisjidus Achates for 
 
 the time, Mr. . Sir James complained, as usual, of the great 
 
 equatoreal, and then, turning to Mr. Simms, added, " And indeed, 
 Mr. Simms, as you so feelingly expressed it, what a pity it is the 
 old gentleman ever made an instrument after my transit ! " 
 
 After we had obtained the verdict, and the money was paid, I 
 gave myself very little trouble about Sir James South. The fate 
 of the instrument may be learned from the following hand-bill, 
 which was posted up rather extensively : 
 
 * The sphere was cast in two pieces which were turned inside, and then tinned 
 together. This operation, if I remember rightly, cost Mr. Donkin about 40/., 
 and was charged the same to Sir James. I think I understood that no profit was 
 charged on any part of Mr. Donkin's work by Messrs. Troughton and Simms. 
 
 f In the Phil. Trans., 1826, Part iii., p. 426, in a paper describing Sir James 
 South's seven-feet transit instrument, the following passage occurs : 
 
 " By the above mode of joining the principal parts (i.e. Troughton's mode) the 
 bars may be stretched, and the sphere even compressed to any extent short of that 
 which would occasion a permanent alteration in the length of the former or in 
 the figure of the latter ; a thing which Mr. Troughton considers would, perhaps, 
 not take place with a force equal to a ton of weight. How much such a connexion 
 must be better than any that could be effected by binding together the exterior 
 parts, to use the emphatic language of our artist, ' every one who is gifted 
 with mechanical intellect will readily determine.' In a note to the word sphere 
 it is said, ' That every part of the sphere should possess a power of resistance 
 as uniform as possible : extreme precaution was employed in turning its interior 
 surface so as to render it concentric with the exterior.' " 
 
 The description of the instrument is by Troughton, except a few interpolations 
 by Sir James, such as the second sentence and the note in the above extract. I 
 am by no means convinced that the central sphere of the seven-feet transit was 
 turned in its interior surface. I remember that Mr. Donkin spoke of turn- 
 ing the interior surface of the central sphere of the great equatoreal as a 
 novelty, which he did not think necessary, but which he executed at the special 
 instance of Sir James South. There was some idea at that time that the 
 telescope of the great equatoreal might be used as a transit, and it was accordingly 
 made with great care and delicacy, as Sir James required. I suppose all this was 
 forgotten by Sir James when he said in his evidence, that he had proposed to 
 Troughton to follow Dollond's construction, i. e. that in which " the exterior 
 parts were bound together." 
 
OBSERVATORY, 
 
 Campden Hill, Kensington. 
 
 To Shy-cock Toy Makers Smoke Jack Makers 
 
 Mock Coin Makers Dealers in Old Metals 
 
 Collectors of and Dealers in Artificial Curiosities 
 
 and to such Fellows of 
 
 THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, 
 
 as at the Meeting of that most learned and equally upright Body, 
 on the 13th of May last, were enlightened by Mr. Airy's (the 
 Astronomer Royal's) profound expose of the Mechanical Incapacity 
 of English Astronomical Instrument Makers of the present day. 
 
 TO BE SOX.D, 
 
 By hand, on the Premises, by 
 
 MR. MACLELAND, 
 
 ON WEDNESDAY NEXT, DECEMBER 21st, 
 Between 11 and 12 in the Forenoon, 
 
 Several Hundred-weight of Brass, Gun Metal, &c. &c. 
 being the Metal of the 
 
 GREAT EQUATORIAL INSTRUMENT, 
 
 Made for the Kensington Observatory, 
 
 BY MESSRS. 
 
 TROUGHTON AND SIMMS, 
 
 The Wooden Polar Axis of which, by the same Artists, and its Botchings cobbled 
 up by their Assistants, 
 
 MB. AIRY AND THE REV. R. SHEEPSHANKS, 
 
 were, in consequence of public advertisement on the 8th of July, 1839, purchased 
 by divers Venders of Old Clothes, and Licenced Dealers in Dead Cows and 
 Horses, &c. &c. with the exception of a fragment of Mahogany, specially 
 reserved, at the request of several distinguished Philosophers, which, on account 
 of the great anxiety expressed by Foreign Astronomers and Foreign Astronomical 
 Instrument Makers, to possess, when converted into Snuff Boxes, as a souvenir 
 piquant of the state of the Art of Astronomical Instrument Making in England 
 during the 19th Century, will, at the conclusion of the Sale, be disposed of, 
 at per pound. 
 
 The want of truth, sense, and construction in this handbill re- 
 quires no notice ; Sir James South had paid his bill, and like other 
 losers, had leave to pout. But I feel sure that if his " imaginary 
 conversations " had been invented at that time, they would have 
 been given to the world in some shape or other. 
 
26 
 
 After this date, the latter end of 1839, I cannot recollect that 
 Sir James had any very cogent motive to attack me, and his 
 silence, therefore, does not prove much.* Now Mr. Babbage said, 
 at our last Greenwich meeting in 1854, that he had advocated the 
 charge against me as soon as he was acquainted with it : this, if lite- 
 rally interpreted, would imply that Sir James had not imparted the 
 story to him much earlier than to the world in general through 
 the Mechanics' Magazine. I should guess that Sir James did not 
 fully recollect all the particulars of his story (garnish is, I believe, 
 the professional word for this species of embellishment) before 
 1850 or 1851. 
 
 I am afraid that other persons, besides Mr. Babbage, will see 
 something of a persecuting and malicious spirit in my conduct to 
 Sir James South. I am not conscious of any such feeling. 
 Throughout, I was defending some one else, or exposing an igno- 
 rant and mischievous charlatan, whose natural impulse is to 
 worry other better men. My vehement indignation was first 
 roused by his conduct towards Dr. Thomas Young, the most 
 extraordinary man of the past generation. But there is scarcely 
 an eminent astronomer, either English or foreign, whom this per- 
 son, who cannot solve a plane triangle, has not insulted with 
 his abuse at one time, and his praise at another. Young, Pond, 
 Troughton, Pearson, Fallows, Baily, Stratford, Davies Gilbert, 
 Kater, Woodhouse, among the dead ; Herschel and Airy among the 
 living. His first appearance was in the character of " a British 
 lion," insisting that all the world should perform kootoo before the 
 Greenwich Observatory and Troughton. He then took a Gallo- 
 mania, and prated of Laplace, and Arago, and Gambey. Then 
 came a German and Russian fever, and he became the wor- 
 shipper of Bessel and Struve, whom heretofore he had held in 
 small esteem. What right has a person of Sir James South's 
 talents and acquirements to express any opinion about such men at 
 all ? I do not understand, and I trust shall never practise, the good 
 manners which teach you to sit quietly by, when high and honour- 
 able men are assailed ; and I think, and shall continue to think, 
 that politeness of this kind arises from moral cowardice, and no 
 better principle. 
 
 But though I took a very active part in plucking off the daw's 
 stolen feathers, I will not claim more than my due. I have men- 
 tioned already how the Board of Visitors lost his company. It 
 was a sarcastic remark from Davies Gilbert that drove Sir James 
 South from the meeting of the Royal Society " five-and-twenty 
 years ago," according to his pathetic speech the last anniversary, 
 though he made no allusion to that reminiscence. 
 
 It was Mr. Gassiot, and not I, who styled Sir James a " calum- 
 niator," or some equivalent word, in a full meeting of the Royal 
 
 * I made a passing remark or two upon him, when I was defending the 
 Liverpool Observatory, and setting Mr. Babbage right about the discovery of 
 Neptune, and I think if he had had his story ready then, it would have been 
 published. 
 
27 
 
 Society, after the mask of the " contributing Fellow of the Royal 
 Society " had been with some trouble detected and torn off. It was 
 to shun the consequences of Captain Grover's wrath, not mine, 
 that Sir James shut himself up in his house, and appealed to 
 the Court of Queen's Bench for protection. I had nothing 
 to do with Sir James's blackballing at the Royal Society 
 Club, an operation, if I remember rightly, twice performed. I 
 had no hand in refusing him a Doctor's degree at Oxford, after 
 the Chancellor had recommended him. Suum cuique ; I may have 
 been a " contributing member " to his humiliation, but I don't wish 
 to rob my neighbours, or to publish their acts as my own. 
 
 I will now leave the subject of Sir James South and his credi- 
 bility to the r judgment of the members of the Board, requesting 
 them to excuse the length of these remarks, their want of con- 
 nexion, and perhaps the plainness of the language. For 
 the last failing, I might almost plead the words of Sir James 
 himself : " I have not thought it worth while to polish the lan- 
 guage in which the former (charges) were conveyed ; they carry 
 with them evidence of haste in point of composition, though they 
 are derived from documents collected with considerable care ; nor 
 will I alter or soften down the style, to suit the taste of the fasti- 
 dious ; for if the charges themselves be founded in truth, words 
 much stronger than I have used might be considered lenient."* 
 
 The slanderous letter of Sir James South in such a publication 
 as the " Mechanics' Magazine" would scarcely have deserved any 
 notice if it had not, like a bad bill with a solvent indorser, been 
 backed by Mr. Babbage. To this gentleman I have been for some 
 years a very bugbear, one to whom he has ascribed all sorts of 
 injuries, and calamities, and persecutions, and with such confidence, 
 that I fear some unsuspecting people, ignorant of his malady, 
 may believe him. I have no hope of removing his monomania, nor, 
 so far as I am personally concerned, do I mind what Mr. Babbage 
 may think of me, I know I should be very sorry to be tried for 
 burning St. Paul's if he were on the jury at the Old Bailey. I fear he 
 would find me guilty and starve upon it, though he had seen the 
 church safe and sound the moment before he took his place in the 
 box. There has never been any intimacy between Mr. Babbage 
 and me, although we have many common friends. To say the 
 truth, though I never had any doubt of his extraordinary talents 
 
 * See Preface to the second edition of " Charges against the President 
 and Council of the Royal Society, by Sir James South, &c. London : B. 
 Fellowes. 1830." In the advertisement, Sir James says : " It is well 
 known to the scientific public that I stand pledged to present to them a work 
 entitled, On the Conduct of the Royal Society," &c. It is at least equally well 
 known that this pledge has never been redeemed. The advertisement proceeds 
 to say that sanguine hopes were entertained that his promise might have been 
 redeemed before the anniversary of 1830. " The unceasing attention, however, 
 which the erection of my large equatoreal has demanded, will, I find, effectually 
 preclude the completion of my wish." So at this time, Nov. 11, 1830, Sir 
 James puts forward a claim to a sort of artistic partnership with the " revered 
 friend," whom he wished "to do" so signally two years later. 
 
28 
 
 in analysis and the science of symbols, I never could make him 
 out to be anything but a very wrong-headed mortal on other sub- 
 jects. As a member of a committee, he has always seemed to me 
 
 Great Equatoreal, as originally constructed. 
 
 In the Meridian. 
 
 At 6 hours from the Meridian. 
 
 a very crotchety person, who would not agree with any one 
 else, nor propose anything with which any one else could agree. 
 The origin of his dislike to me he has explained, though not quite 
 
29 
 
 correctly, in his book on the Exhibition of 1851; and here I 
 must enter into some particulars with respect to the great equa- 
 toreal, for I cannot make matters clear otherwise. 
 
 I have given above two very rude diagrams of the instrument 
 as it was originally constructed, and as we found it when we 
 undertook its cure in the winter of 1832-3. The fault found 
 with it was this : when the instrument was turned a little round 
 and then let go, a series of short, quick vibrations followed ; 
 there might be about a dozen vibrations, each lasting about 0'3 or 
 0-4 seconds.* These were very perceptible at the telescope or 
 at the hour-circle. 
 
 I suspected, before I saw the instrument in situ, that the evil 
 lay in the lower pivot, and that it arose from the interlacing, as it 
 were, of the fibres of a small surface of contact under a heavy 
 pressure. Mr. Donkin held a similar opinion, but thought the 
 injurious pressure was on the small axes of two little friction- 
 wheels, which formed the lower Y. I suspect now that he was in 
 the right. The experiment which detected where the error lay 
 was simple and decisive. A telescope was attached to the circum- 
 ference of the hour-circle, and directed on a mark carried by an 
 outrigger from the upper pivot. It was immediately evident that 
 the polar axis moved bodily together, and that the cause of error 
 was below the hour-circle. The cure I applied was a broad 
 bearing of soft metal, when this vibration ceased.f 
 
 But now, when the instrument was moved round by laying 
 hold of the telescope (it was quite steady when moved by the hour- 
 circle), a vibration not unlike the former was discovered, and after 
 a good deal of blundering (I am surprised at my own dulness) 
 its cause was detected, viz., a twisting in the frame of the axis, 
 which has evidently no provision against twist. This was a most 
 unpleasant discovery; but I succeeded in diminishing the twist 
 very sensibly by a rude bracing with pieces of quartering. The 
 ultimate remedy was to carry deep pieces parallel to the hour- 
 circle from one beam to the other beam of each cheek, to bind these 
 deep connecting pieces together with deep diagonal bracing, and, 
 lastly, to cover the outside with a thin sheathing of boards in the 
 direction of the polar axis, and the inside with short, strong trans- 
 verse boards, from beam to beam. The whole assemblage was 
 strongly screwed and glued together by an excellent workman 
 
 * Sir John Herschel, T believe, suggested that the instrument might bind at 
 the upper pivot, which would have agreed with the phenomena. Mr. Babbage's 
 notion, which I heard from him at Cambridge, was this ; that the whole frame 
 was loose, and therefore, in every position, the centre of gravity fell below the line 
 of suspension. Now, suppose the instrument moved a little, and the position of 
 the parts fixed, the instrument would return like a pendulum. Granting Mr. 
 Babbage this convenient alternation of fast and loose, we shall see that his hypo- 
 thesis did not satisfy the appearances. 
 
 f If a good clock motion had been applied to the hour-circle, I believe no 
 fault would ever have been found with the instrument : it would have required a 
 . very delicate hand, but that Sir James possessed. The first satisfactory clock for 
 a large equatoreal, that was known in this country, was one contrived by me 
 for this very instrument. It was so steady and insensible to its work, that it 
 only varied 6 s in an hour, between carrying the equatoreal and going quite free. 
 
30 
 
 supplied by Mr. Donkin ; and his expression, " it felt like a tree," 
 was quite correct. The instrument now looked as if it were made up 
 of two decked-boats, and in my opinion was handsomer than it was 
 originally. Before this alteration, I had given the polar axis a 
 definite twist, by applying two balancing weights, each of a hun- 
 dredweight, at the upper and lower ends, and then applying them 
 on different sides. I found that the double action of these weights 
 twisted the axis through an angle of about 7'. After the bracing, 
 the twist by the same weights, similarly applied, was insensible, 
 but I am sure it could not have exceeded 7". 
 
 We were turned out in the autumn of 1833, and not readmitted 
 until July 1834, when the arbitrator, being possessed of the cause, 
 gave us a month, with the use of the object-glass (Sir James 
 South and his friends being allowed to inflict their company upon 
 us), with leave to affix our clock, and to procure evidence of what 
 the machine really was as an astronomical instrument. Two- 
 thirds, at least, of the month were consumed in making a screw 
 (which, after all, was far from perfect), and in attaching and 
 affixing the apparatus ; but in the few days which remained, Mr. 
 Donkin and Mr. Pond were shown the instrument, and were satis- 
 fied that it would do its work of measuring double stars. Mr. 
 Airy, Mr. Simms, and I, made perfectly satisfactory observations 
 in distance of three or four double stars,* although we had never, 
 I believe, measured double stars before. 
 
 * Any equatoreally moving telescope will measure position, though the ob- 
 servation requires dexterity and practice. We measured the angle of position 
 chiefly in order to set the micrometer wires at right angles with the line joining 
 the stars. The following list contains the results of all the observations, and the 
 note-book in which they were entered was placed in Mr. Bethune's hands : 
 
 s Bootis. 
 
 1834. Position. No. ofObs. Distance. No. of Obs. Observer. 
 
 July 18 53 49' N. Precs 3 3"-ll 4 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 24 48 28 32 '79 4 B. Donkin. 
 
 48 1 2 -82 3 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 30 51 29 10 2 -98 10 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 2 -99 10 W. Simms. 
 
 On July 25, Mr. Pond, Mr. Simms, and I, all took angles of position, but 
 the results could not be ascertained, as the observations for zero had been 
 neglected. The observations of July 30 in full sunshine. 
 
 I Bootis. 
 
 July 11 57 46' N. Prec* 1 The screw very imperfect. 
 
 18 58 13 4 7-16 3 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 59 19 5 7-30 4 W. Simms. 
 
 30 60 16 15 7-30 10 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 59 14 5 7-49 10 W. Simms. 
 
 Herculis. 
 July 24 27 39 S. Foils 1 4-95 2 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 28 31 11 493 8 Prof. Airy. 
 
 30 28 35 5 4-95 10 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 29 37 5 4-92 10 W. Simms. 
 
 61 Ophiuchi. 
 
 July 30 3 37 S. Free* 4 20-47 4 R. Sheepshanks. 
 
 Several of these observations were taken when the star was nearly two hours 
 from the meridian. The power used was about 240, as high as the telescope 
 would well bear, except on July 30, when Mr. Simms and I used 500 for 
 Herculis. 
 
31 
 
 In their examination, Mr. Pond and Mr. Donkin said they had 
 no doubt of the capability of the instrument to do its proper work, 
 viz., make micrometrical measures. Mr. Airy said he could mea- 
 sure a double star with it as easily as he could measure two dots on 
 a sheet of paper. I was quite willing to let its quality rest on the 
 distance-measures of MM. Airy, Simms, and myself. I may add, 
 that Dr. Robinson, the only astronomical witness produced by Sir 
 James South, admitted that the apparatus was sufficient and con- 
 venient for taking sets of measures of double stars ; but he com- 
 plained that it could not be easily set on a star, and that the place 
 of a star could not be correctly ascertained by it. I can only 
 reply, that he exhibited several nebulae to the arbitrator which 
 were found by the setting of Sir James's gardener, Lyall. 
 Moreover, that Dr. Robinson's observations (made at my re- 
 quest), when the obvious errors of reading were corrected, and the 
 instrumental errors deduced and applied, did not, I think, exhibit 
 a probable error of 30" or an extreme error of 90'', though some 
 stars were observed at six hours on each side the meridian.* Now 
 this is far more than ever Troughton expected, for he considered 
 the circles as mere finders, and the declination circle was increased 
 from nine inches to two feet, chiefly to get proper leverage for set- 
 ting. The edges of the radii were rounded on this special account. 
 If Sir James South would have allowed us to finish the instru- 
 ment, which we offered to do at our own expense, and would then 
 have submitted the matter to independent astronomers, who were 
 no partisans, this long and expensive litigation would, I conceive, 
 never have arisen. I don't think that any honest man could have 
 refused our proposal, nor can I think any compromise would 
 have been reasonable until our proposal had been tried. 
 
 In our invitations to gentlemen to inspect the equatoreal in July 
 1 834 though even then it was not so good as we think we could 
 have made it we included Mr. Baily and Captain Smy th, who might 
 at that time be considered as neutral ; and Captain Beaufort and 
 Mr. Thomas Jones, whom we knew to be hostile. I cannot have 
 known that Mr. Babbage was to be a witness, or I should have 
 invited him, notwithstanding his small acquaintance with, or ap- 
 titude for, astronomical observation. j" MM. Baily and Smyth 
 declined, I think, unless they were invited by both sides. Cap- 
 tain Beaufort declined, as being Sir James's friend ; and Mr. 
 Jones gave, I believe, no answer. Several other persons were 
 
 * I may perhaps have failed in my computations (the principles of which will 
 be found under EQUATOREAL, Penny Cyclopedia), but this is the conclusion I 
 arrived at, after carefully working out the whole of the observations twice over. I 
 could not, however, prove this on the trial, as my examination was over almost a 
 year before Dr. Robinson's observations were made. I offered to publish the 
 observations and my results for public examination ; but the defendant's attorney 
 and counsel objected most strenuously. 
 
 + I am sure that Mr. Babbage is strictly true as to matters of fact occurring 
 within the perception of his senses (except perhaps in what regards me), and 
 1 think that I could have taught him to measure the distance of a double star 
 with our apparatus, though perhaps not very well. We were at that time on 
 good terms, as good as we had ever been. 
 
32 
 
 asked, but except those whom I have already mentioned, and Mr. 
 T. Bramah, no one came.* It was, unfortunately, cloudy on Mr. 
 Bramah's night, and he saw nothing ; he heard, however, a good 
 deal of reproachful language from Sir James South, who made no 
 secret of his intention to consider the seeing the equatoreal under 
 our care as a personal injury and insult.f 
 
 Mr. Babbage gave his evidence against the instrument, and, as 
 it seemed to me with considerable bitterness, some time before the 
 long vacation of 1835. I shall consider the substance of his evi- 
 dence in- chief, and in cross-examination, a little further on ; but 
 the " unextinguishable hate" which he has borne me for almost 
 twenty years dates from a conversation which took place at that 
 time. As there were a few minutes to spare after the examina- 
 tion in chief was finished, Mr. Starkie, who was not prepared to 
 cross-examine, asked Mr. Babbage some questions as to his inti- 
 macy with Sir James South, and how often he had dined with him, 
 &c., rather too much in the Skimpin style to please me. This 
 irritated Mr. Babbage, who had reckoned, I suppose, on more 
 courtesy from a brother professor ; and he came up angrily to 
 Mr. Starkie and me, after the meeting was over, to complain. 
 Now at the moment, I too was full of wrath, not at the effect 
 of Mr. Babbage's evidence (for I saw its weakness, and how much 
 it might be turned in our favour), but that a man of Mr. Babbage's 
 reputation and liberal professions, the Lucasian Professor, should so 
 expose himself. He disliked Troughton (so I believe) for no better 
 cause than that Sir James, who quoted the old man " with addi- 
 tions" on all occasions, had frequently put him down, and very 
 offensively, by Troughton's authority.! I believe, too, that 
 Mr. Babbage was glad to seize upon an opportunity to go 
 against Mr. Airy, whom I suspect he never forgave for 
 
 * Mr. Simms has supplied me with a note of the gentlemen invited by 
 Troughton and himself to inspect the instrument : 
 
 Capt. Beaufort, Mr. Dollond, 
 
 Professor Barlow, Mr. J. Penn, 
 
 Dr. Gregory, Mr. B. Donkin, 
 
 Mr. F. Baily, Mr. Pond, A.R. 
 
 Mr. T. Bramah, Capt. W. H. Smyth, 
 
 Mr. Cubitt, Mr. Henderson, 
 
 Mr. T. Jones, And also the Defendant 
 
 Mr. E. Riddle, and his Friends, 
 
 f Mr. Bramah was greatly surprised at his reception by Sir James, and 
 remarked to me, that though he had often been called upon to inspect the subject- 
 matter of a dispute, this was the first time he had been so treated. I own I 
 should have been more surprised if Sir James had " behaved himself." Yet I 
 have no doubt Sir James quite agrees with Mr. Babbage, that the habit of 
 stopping evidence by threats is peculiar to me. 
 
 J For years it was Sir James's habit to go backwards and forwards between 
 Troughton and his other acquaintance, repeating and improving what each 
 might say disparaging of the other. In this way he stirred up a very fair amount 
 of bad blood, and especially, I believe, in Mr. Babbage, of whom at that time he 
 thought very little. A horse-laugh, and " Troughton says," formed his triumphant 
 reply to every remark ; and I am sorry to say that some most excellent and sen- 
 sible men did not see through the trick. I was one day discussing a point 
 of astronomical construction with one of the most able and candid men this 
 
being preferred as Lucasian Professor, and whose discharge 
 of that office formed such a contrast to his own. I may be 
 fanciful perhaps, and uncharitable, but I was of opinion then, 
 and am so still, that Mr. Babbage calculated that he was 
 playing a safe game. The arbitrator was a friend, to whom he 
 owed, if I have not been misinformed, some germs of his speculations 
 on Functions ; Mr. Starkie was a brother professor, and Mr. Bethune, 
 a friend and admirer. Be this as it may, there is no doubt I was 
 a good deal excited when^ I heard such evidence from Mr. Bab- 
 bage, who not long before had offered himself for Finsbury (and I 
 had voted for him) on the especial ground that he would promote 
 the interests of the industrious and intelligent classes. I do not 
 think I should have sought the occasion of speaking my mind ; but 
 when he had thus offered it, undoubtedly I availed myself of it 
 with the utmost freedom, it may be with some rudeness. I told 
 him that he cried out before he was hurt, and that his cross- 
 examination would give him far more reasons for complaint. That 
 he had disgraced himself that evening doubly; by his mechanical 
 ignorance, and by supporting a person whom he knew to be a char- 
 latan, and who was also dishonest enough to refuse payment, while 
 he denied the artist the liberty to finish and prove and exhibit 
 his work. I said that I did not think any gentleman who knew 
 the circumstances had any right to assist Sir James South, until 
 he agreed to act honestly; adding, that if my clients had shown 
 the least disposition to do less than justice to Sir James, I would 
 not have aided them a moment " longer. Mr. Babbage admitted 
 that he thought Sir James wrong in that respect, and that we 
 ought to have had leave to finish our work ; but he maintained 
 that he himself was justified in the course he had taken. After 
 a little more snarling, I told him that I would expose his igno 
 ranee, and show him up ; and to his reply, that he did not care, 
 I told him I would make him care. 
 
 All this will seem very coarse and rude, the previous excite- 
 ment on both sides not being considered. As far as I remember, we 
 walked quietly up and down Lincoln's Inn Fields during the talk, 
 and I allow, that, though I think myself undoubtedly right in the 
 view I took, the vehemence of language was all on my side. 
 
 As was, perhaps, natural, this conversation made a very differ- 
 ent impression on the two parties. I had no idea that Mr. Bab- 
 bage could be much affected by it, until I heard that he was so 
 
 country can boast of, and to strengthen my own view had just said, " Troughton's 
 opinion is," when I was stopped by a sudden interrogatory, " Before you 
 proceed, let me ask, do you swear by Troughton ?" " No," was my reply ; " but 
 he is a very able, sound-headed man, and has devoted a long life to this peculiar 
 subject, and I think his opinion is always of value." " Most certainly" 
 
 was 's answer, and we ended most amicably, and in accordance with 
 
 Troughton. Sir James misused Troughton's name as much as Falstaff did the 
 king's press ; and one of the rods I most frequently applied to him was to state 
 Troughton's real opinion in contradiction to his erroneous version. 
 
 C 
 
34 
 
 from our common Cambridge friends, to whom he made very bitter 
 and very womanish complaints. But I was most unfeignedly 
 surprised, when at our next meeting for his cross-examination, 
 Mr. Babbage appealed to the arbitrator for protection, with 
 a very absurd mixture of pride and fear. He said that I had 
 threatened him and other witnesses in this cause (not naming 
 them, however), and he had seen such consequences of my 
 malignity in the case of Sir James South, that he wished to guard 
 himself from the lie. Not that he cared, however. The arbi- 
 trator asked me what I had to say in reply. I answered, that what 
 Mr. Babbage said was true, I had threatened to show him up, and 
 what was there to prevent me doing so if I chose ? Mr. Babbage 
 was not the man to complain of being exposed. But I would 
 insure him against the fear that I might attack him underhand. 
 I said that I had never spoken or written anything that I was not 
 ready to avow, and that it should never be said of me, that I 
 walked arm-in-arm with a man as his friend, having a printed 
 libel against him in my pocket.* The arbitrator simply remarked, 
 that it was agreeable to find, what indeed might be expected, that 
 two gentlemen should agree as to what had occurred, and then 
 directed Mr. Starkie to proceed. 
 
 I have already mentioned Mr. Babbage's unlucky hypothesis 
 as to the cause of the small vibrations in R. A. which were found 
 in the Campden Hill Equatoreal. I don't think his fast and loose 
 principle will tmd much favour ; but there was an obvious 
 mechanical objection to his solution, which the occupier of 
 Newton's chair should not have overlooked. Huyghens dis- 
 covered this property in every body supported on an axis, that 
 the distance of the centre of gravity from the point of suspension 
 multiplied by its distance from the centre of oscillation, is a con- 
 stant quantity, and equal to the square of the distance from the 
 centre of gravity to the centre of gyration. f Now if we suppose 
 the centre of gravity of the polar axis to fall 0'2 inches below 
 the axis of suspension, and the distance of the centre of gyration 
 from the centre of gravity to be 12 inches, the other term in the 
 proportion will be 12 2 divided by 0'2, or 720 inches, i. e., the 
 oscillations in this case would be synchronous with a pendulum 
 of about 60 feet. Now the actual oscillations corresponded 
 to a pendulum of about 6 inches. An exposition of this mistake 
 formed the commencement of Mr. Babbage's cross-examina- 
 tion ; but whether Mr. Babbage was discomposed by the failure 
 of his charge of intimidation or not, it is certain that he would 
 neither recollect nor deny his hypothesis. What was still more 
 extraordinary, he did not evince any acquaintance with Huyghens' 
 
 * I have been told, on what seems to me very respectable authority, that 
 Mr. Babbage walked amicably with Capt. Sabine while the " Decline of Science " 
 was in the press. 
 
 f On this property depends Rater's measurement of the length of the simple 
 pendulum. 
 
35 
 
 principle, though it was quite familiar to the arbitrator, to Mr. 
 Starkie, to Mr. Bethune, and to myself. * 
 
 Mr. Babbage was well acquainted with the measures I had 
 taken to prevent the twisting of the polar axis, and he might have 
 learned from my evidence that they were perfectly successful. 
 I should say that no ordinary mechanic could have doubted of the 
 general effect of the bracing, though he might not have been able 
 to see the exact extent. Mi*. Babbage could not see any principle, 
 however, j" rior that the connecting pieces and braces were con- 
 trived to keep all the parts in their places. His definition of a tie 
 was that it was " a long, thin, piece of iron," and he could not see 
 that our deep cross-pieces, which connected the two beams of each 
 cheek, acted as struts to keep the beams apart and ties to prevent 
 their further separation. 
 
 Mr. Babbage pointed out a real failing, which Mr. Simms and 
 I were well aware of, and which could have been remedied in a 
 great degree, if remedies had been required or permitted. This 
 was the wriggling at the base, especially when the telescope was 
 uix hours from the meridian. In this case the upper cheek tends 
 to straighten, and to push out the upper side of the base, J while the 
 lower cheek bends outwards, and so shortens, and pulls in 
 the lower side of the base. But in an astronomical instrument of 
 this nature, which was designed by the maker for micrometrical 
 measurement and nothing else,, the derangement arising from 
 this cause could scarcely be injurious. It would have been 
 allowed for if necessary, I think, by applying a slight addition 
 to the latitude correction, varying according to the hour- 
 angle. Mr. Babbage, however, furnished no means for esti- 
 mating the amount of this wriggling, and Dr. Robinson's ob- 
 servations show that it must have been small. Another experi- 
 ment, I think, was produced by Mr. Babbage to prove that the 
 cheeks approached each other at their lower edges when in the 
 meridian. Laths were inserted between the cheeks at their lower 
 edges, which fell out when the instrument was turned round. That 
 
 * I have no doubt that with time, and in a quiet place, Mr. Babbage would 
 have recognised his hypothesis and its folly ; but he is an unready man and 
 easily flurried, and I am not quite sure he comprehended what was going on 
 until it was over. That was no concern of ours ; when we felt that the arbitra- 
 tor was convinced, we did not stay to convince the witnesses that they had 
 " blackened their own faces," which was generally the case. 
 
 f None of the witnesses except Dr. Robinson attempted to speak of this 
 machine as an astronomical instrument. None were aware that its original defect 
 was a liability to twist, and nearly all declared that the bracing had no prin- 
 ciple that they could see, which I have no doubt was true. The main objection 
 taken was to the great bending of the axis, which, it will be seen, did not exist, 
 and, if it had existed, would have been of small astronomical importance, as it 
 would scarcely have deranged the direction of the telescope, which is the only 
 essential matter. 
 
 J The base should have been much thicker and continued downwards to end in 
 blunt cone, like the Schuckburgh Equatorial and the 5-foot Equatorial at Camp- 
 den Hill. Strong metal plates, connecting the cheeks and the base more securely, 
 would have lessened the defect and could have been applied easily. 
 
36 
 
 this must be the case is obvious enough; but, owing to the symmetry 
 of the instrument, this yielding had no astronomical effect. The 
 position of the declination axis in space, if altered at all, was 
 shifted in a direction nearly parallel, and the astronomical effect 
 was not sensible. An attempt was made by an earlier witness to 
 impeach the strength of the machine and to insinuate that it might 
 work itself to pieces ; but this notion arose from his entire igno- 
 rance as to the strength of materials and the laws of elasticity, 
 and everything else. With proper care, the great equatorial would 
 have outlived the present generation and two or three more to come. 
 After exposing Mr. Babbage's fast-and-loose hypothesis, and 
 its supposed consequences, he was cross-examined as to an expe- 
 riment of his own. (See Figure annexed, in which the shaded 
 portion signifies a section through the two cheeks composing the 
 polar axis.) 
 
 The telescope was pointed to the pole, and the declination 
 axis firmly clamped ; the eye end was prolonged downwards, and 
 ended in a needle or pencil. The instrument was turned round in 
 R.A., and at every hour a mark was made in a piece of paper 
 fixed at the middle of the base. This drawing was produced by 
 Mr. Babbage at his examination in chief, as a proof of the great 
 bending of the polar axis, and it was upon this experiment,* 
 
 * Mr. Babbage was unlucky ; a previous witness had brought this experiment 
 forward, which, by Mr. Airy's help, I had completely analysed, and saw that it 
 contradicted the opinions of the experimenter. 
 
37 
 
 which he clearly did not understand, that I had chiefly relied for 
 " showing him up." 
 
 Anybody who considers the experiment carefully will see that 
 the dotted curve is made up of at least two elements, the flexure of 
 the lower half of the telescope, and the bending of the axis. Mr. 
 Babbage had already given us the value of the flexure of the tele- 
 scope. So having first entrapped him into an opinion that the 
 polar axis bent more than if it had been made of straight timber,* 
 though he admitted he did not know how much straight timber 
 would bend, it was explained to him that the minor axis of the 
 curve was made up of twice the flexure of the lower end of the 
 telescope and twice the bending of the axis in the meridian. 
 This he admitted ; and, indeed, it is quite obvious. It was 
 then explained to him that, according to his own data, the 
 single flexure of the lower end of the telescope with its con- 
 tinuation was at least "08 inches. This, too, was admitted. 
 He was then requested to subtract twice this amount from 
 the minor axis, to halve the remainder, and tell us how much the 
 polar axis bent, from his own experiment and on his own data ; 
 and I handed him a pair of compasses and a scale to perform the 
 operation. " According to this," was Mr. Babbage's stammering 
 answer, " the axis does not bend at all in the meridian ; but I can't 
 be expected to know so much about the instrument as those who 
 have spent so much time over it." As he left the room in consi- 
 derable discomposure, I own I did not envy his feelings. On 
 looking at the major axis of the curve, it will be seen that other 
 elements enter ; the end-shake of the declination axis, and the 
 angular effect of the base-wriggling on the declination axis. The 
 end-shake is, astronomically speaking, of no importance. The de- 
 clination axis was designed, if I remember rightly, to rest on one 
 cheek and to hang from the other when the instrument was out of 
 the" meridian ; and I believe the adjustment might have been so 
 made as to diminish the end-shake, and, consequently, the major 
 axis of the curve, considerably. Certain it is, one of the suspending 
 caps acted, and the other did not ; but we were allowed no oppor- 
 tunity for correction.! 
 
 * This opinion was shared by almost all the Campden Hill mechanics, while 
 they admitted candidly they did not know, and could not calculate, how much the 
 polar axis did bend, or how much, if made of straight timber, it might be ex- 
 pected to bend. There must be a little hypothesis as to straight timber ; but I 
 think I found from Tredgold's formula that a straight beam of the length and 
 scantling of the polar axis beams, placed at the same angle, and loaded with 
 one-fourth the weight of the telescope, would bend more than 0'6 inches. 
 
 f 1 The effect of end-shake is very evident in Mr. Babbage's diagram, the 
 points are most widely separated at two or three hours from the meridian, where 
 the variation of flexure in the axis must have been very small. The astronomical 
 effect of end-shake, I need not say, is nothing. In explaining the mode of fixing 
 the ends of the declination axis, I made a mistake, confounding the impression I 
 had received from Mr. Sim'ms' description, with the matter of fact. Some attempt 
 was made to discredit me on this account, though I admitted the mistake 
 directly it was pointed out, and explained how the confusion had arisen, and 
 although the fact had the same bearing either way. The unequal wearing of 
 
38 
 
 An experiment was devised and tried by Sir William Cubitt, 
 which, when carefully analysed, throws great light on the consti- 
 tution of the polar axis. He fixed the object end carefully at the 
 upper pivot, and obtained the following curve from the needle, or 
 pencil attached to the eye end, while the axis was turned round : 
 
 In analysing this curve, it must be remembered that the tele- 
 scope is balanced while the upper end infixed ; and therefore that, 
 in the meridian, the drop of the needle point due to the flexure 
 of the telescope, is nearly double of what it was when clamped, 
 being the sum of the curvatures of the object and eye ends of 
 the telescope. The diameter of the curve in the direction of the 
 meridian is, therefore, twice the flexure of the upper end of the tele- 
 scope + twice the flexure of the lower end and its continuation + 
 twice the bending of the axis. This was taught me by the Astro- 
 nomer Royal ; and after a little explanation was clearly seen by 
 the arbitrator. Mr. Starkie then assumed, as a self-evident 
 truth, what, indeed, I had impressed upon him, that the same 
 
 the caps was in favour of the instrument, for it showed that it was affected by 
 a corrigible error, which a proper adjustment would have destroyed. This 
 unequal wearing had been given in evidence on the defendant's side, and not 
 disputed. When we were admitted by the arbitrator, we looked at the caps, and, 
 finding one a good deal ploughed and worn, Mr. Siinms asked me if it would 
 not be well to take it home and planish it, and I advised him to do so. Out of 
 this simple fact, Sir James and " his tail" raised a host of monstrous and malicious 
 surmises, which had no sense or probability to support them. 
 
39 
 
 exposition would serve all round ; and that, therefore, however 
 absurd it might appear, the polar axis must be almost equally stiff 
 in every position. But the arbitrator immediately pointed out the 
 essential difference between the statical condition of the telescope 
 in the meridian and at six hours from it. At six hours, the bending 
 of the upper half of the telescope has no effect on the lower half, 
 which would remain in the same place if the upper half were 
 cut off. This just distinction, in a principle which had only been 
 recognised a few minutes before, strikes me even now with surprise 
 and admiration. It is clear that the diameter of the curve at right 
 angles to the meridian is made up of twice the flexure of the lower 
 end of the telescope, + twice the bending of the axis at six hours, 
 + twice the end-shake, + whatever angular effect may be due at 
 the declination axis to the wriggling. 
 
 Though the bending in the meridian by Sir William Cubitt's 
 experiment is rather larger than Mr. Babbage made it, the astrono- 
 mical effect in a micrometrical instrument is altogether insensible. 
 
 In estimating the components of Sir William Cubitt's curve, 
 we assumed the bending of the two ends of the telescope, using 
 Dr. Robinson's data, to be about 0'2 inch, so that 0*4 of the 
 meridian diameter of the curve is due to the bending of the 
 telescope. The whole effect of the telescope bending in the direc- 
 tion at right angles to the meridian we found to be about 0'25. It 
 is not possible to assign the amount of end-shake, but it is clearly 
 very considerable. There was, too, I believe, more play in the 
 sockets of the declination axis than ought to have been. I con- 
 ceive that in the meridian the axis did not bend so much as O'l 
 inch, and at six hours from the meridian scarcely more than O'l 5 
 inch. 
 
 It is for Sir James South and his coadjutor, Mr. Babbage, to 
 explain why an instrument so convenient and capable of such 
 good work was wantonly destroyed. The owner of any inanimate 
 thing has a right to do what he will with his own ; and as Sir 
 James paid for the equatoreal, to the last farthing, he had the 
 same right to break it to pieces as a child has to smash his toys. 
 But if Sir James and his friend, having got this material witness 
 out of the way, assert that the great equatoreal was not well 
 adapted for its designed object, they will meet small credence from 
 the astronomers and mechanicians who have attended to the evi- 
 dence which I have just adduced. Perhaps the fact that Sir 
 James was ordered to pay, not merely for the instrument as origin- 
 ally designed, but for my alterations, which were not to be paid for 
 unless they succeeded, may satisfy persons who are neither astro- 
 nomers nor mechanicians, that Mr. Babbage's assertion, " that no 
 after contrivances or expense could correct the errors of an instru- 
 ment itself radically defective in principle," is a simple falsehood. 
 So much for Sir James South and his great equatoreal. 
 
 I will now examine in detail the calumnies which Mr. Babbage 
 has vented against me in his book entitled The Exposition 0/1851. 
 
40 
 
 I have no intention of criticising the whole of this farrago, in 
 which what is true is not new, and what is new is mostly not true, 
 but merely the twelfth chapter, headed Intrigues of Science, which 
 contains several pages consecrated to my especial annihilation. 
 Notwithstanding its catchpenny and delusive title, the work excited 
 little attention ; and I first heard of the honour which had been done 
 me, from the Astronomer Royal, some weeks, if not months, after 
 the appearance of the volume. Not holding with Mr. Babbage, 
 that whatever is asserted and not disproved must, therefore, be 
 true (nor caring much for those people who do hold such an 
 opinion), I put off my reply to a convenient opportunity, when 
 I should have more leisure : but I was so confident that every- 
 body acquainted with the Astronomer Royal or myself, or fami- 
 liar with men of science, or astronomy or astronomers, would 
 see the absurdity and falsehood of such accusations, that, 
 without further provocation, I might have neglected it alto- 
 gether. 
 
 The title of the work called The Decline of Science, which 
 Mr. Babbage published in 1830, and which he alludes to at 
 starting, is a misnomer. Science was not declining in England 
 in 1830, but rapidly rising. I have never heard this disputed by 
 any one worth citing. The title was, I believed, cribbed from 
 Davy, and the book did not answer to it. It should have been 
 called, " Mr. Babbage's Revenges against all and sundry whom he 
 considered in any way concerned in electing Captain Sabine as Se- 
 cretary of the Royal Society, and in rejecting him." Mr. Babbage 
 wished to be Secretary, and he conceived that the President (Davy, 
 I believe) was favourable to his appointment. Whether Davy 
 changed his mind, or whether Davies Gilbert, who succeeded 
 him, did riot hold himself bound to carry out the intention of his 
 predecessor, or whether Mr. Babbage deceived himself, I do not 
 know ; but I do know, for I heard it from Mr. Babbage, that he 
 quarrelled with the Royal Society because it did not get rid of the 
 President who had done him such an injustice as to reject him as 
 secretary. He had a notion, too, which struck me at the time as a 
 very crazy one, that there was some underhand dealing, and that 
 he had been invited to be a candidate to give eclat to Captain 
 Sabine.* 
 
 With this key, I think The Decline of Science" will be 
 much more intelligible to the general reader (if any reader there 
 
 * I heard from Sir James South that Davy had invited him to become Secre- 
 tary, but that he retired in favour of Mr. Babbage. I think the Royal Society 
 had a lucky escape in both. But Juno herself did not take her affront more 
 to heart than Mr. Babbage, nor for a longer period. His anger extends to 
 all who have held the same office as Captain Sabine, and to his very profession. 
 If it ever came to Mr. Babbage's knowledge that Davies Gilbert made some 
 overtures to me to fill that office, his indignation must have been excessive. I 
 am not ambitious of occupying situations for which better men can be found, 
 and, therefore, very respectfully declined coming forwards, notwithstanding the 
 temptation. 
 
41 
 
 be of that work) than it has been hitherto. The astronomical 
 criticism is understood to have been borrowed.* 
 
 Mr. Babbage next assumes that, because this silly and ill- 
 natured production was not specially answered, the facts are in- 
 disputable : and he quotes a remark from Francis Baily, that 
 Professor Moll's pamphlet was " an admission of the truth of his 
 statement." With, perhaps, one exception, I don't know that any- 
 body was interested to reply. Most gentlemen think it better 
 taste to leave libels unanswered ; and, though I think the policy 
 doubtful, considering the ignorance of most readers, and the ill- 
 nature of many, the rule is followed by the best men. Those 
 who are conscious that they may despise paltry accusations, are 
 often too proud to descend to such ignoble strife. I should inter- 
 pret the silence with which "The Decline" was received, to care- 
 lessness or contempt rather than to conviction of its truth or im- 
 portance. Its effect was nothing among men of science, though 
 it probably led the way to Sir James South's " Thirty -nine 
 Charges" which, in like manner, have never been contradicted, 
 that I know of, though they have been ridiculed and laughed at. 
 
 I do not believe that a sensible man like Francis Baily could 
 have spoken of Professor Moll's pamphlet in the sense in which 
 Mr. Babbage quotes him. I conceive that Mr. Baily alluded to 
 the domestic management of the Royal Society, or to some of those 
 local topics which Professor Moll never touched upon, and which 
 most interested Mr. Baily at that time. 
 
 The Professor's object was to set this country, which he liked, 
 in its proper light ; to prove that there was no decline in its 
 science, but the contrary ; and to show that, if the rewards of 
 men of science in other countries were in some instances larger in 
 amount, or more profusely distributed, than with us, yet that they 
 were not unfrequently purchased by political servility. Beyond 
 these points, which he proved, Moll's answer did not profess to go. 
 I have never heard any one doubt, except Mr. Babbage, that 
 on these points Moll had a decided advantage; and, indeed, 
 according to Mr. Babbage's principle, that what li has never been 
 disputed" is true, Professor Moll's pamphlet must be believed, for 
 it has not been controverted. 
 
 In the next pages Mr. Babbage expresses his opinion that 
 " They order this matter better in France," and that the Institute 
 is a far more efficient scientific organ than the Royal Society. 
 It is not my concern to dispute this position, though it might de- 
 mand some limitations and qualifications ; but I may remark, that 
 if the people of England wish to have an Institute, and are in- 
 clined to pay for one, there is nothing to prevent them.** The 
 Royal Society is a voluntary and self-supporting body, which costs 
 the public next to nothing, and which yet has " done the state 
 
 * So I have heard, and I believe it, for there are inconsistencies which look 
 like two hands. It is, however, so superficial, and in general so inconclusive, 
 that it may be the sole production of its presumed author. 
 
42 
 
 some service " in the opinion of more competent and less preju- 
 diced judges than MM^abbage and South. 
 
 In England science is not a profession, as it is on the Continent, 
 and with our expensive social habits on the one hand, and the tempt- 
 ations held out to men of talent, on the other, by the law and the 
 church, it would be no light undertaking to make it a competing 
 profession.* 
 
 It does so happen that the Secretaryship of the Academy 
 of Sciences at Paris is the highest scientific honour in that 
 country, and that with us we think more of the office of Pre- 
 sident. If the Royal Society cannot at all times command the 
 highest and most matured talents for its secretaries, there is no 
 blame that I can see, for it certainly would take them, if they were 
 offered. There are only a few men of science who can afford 
 the time required by the duties of secretary ; and if the office be 
 efficiently filled, it is hard to say where there is any grievance. 
 Mr. Babbage does not allege any incompetence in the officers of 
 the Royal Society, but simply that they are not such distinguished 
 men as the secretaries of the Academy. f 
 
 * The simple and ^inexpensive habits of the Continent, the numerous univer- 
 sities and professorships which exist there, and the small encouragement given to 
 other courses of study, must not be overlooked by any one who wishes to under- 
 stand the matter so crudely propounded by Mr. Babbage. The English univer- 
 sities have few professorships, and those, generally speaking, very poorly paid. 
 If Mr. Justice Maule had preferred science to law, he could not have reckoned 
 on as many hundreds a-year as be has now earned thousands. It is the un- 
 doubted right of the people of this empire to say, through their representatives, 
 what they are desirous to have and are willing to pay for ; but the tone of com- 
 plaint and grievance adopted by some soi-disant friends of science is truly dis- 
 gusting. It is a subject for calm inquiry and careful deliberation, and not for 
 childish querulousness. 
 
 f The following is a list of the Secretaries of the Royal Society for the last 
 fifty years : 
 
 Elected. Resigned. 
 
 1804 William Hyde Wollaston 1816 
 
 1807 Humphry Davy 1812 
 
 1812 . Taylor Combe 1824 
 
 1816 William Thomas Brande 1826 
 
 1824 John Frederic William Herschel .... 1827 
 
 1826 John George Children 1827 
 
 1827 Peter Mark Roget 1848 
 
 1827 Capt. Edward Sabine, R.A 1830 
 
 1830 John George Children 1837 
 
 1837 Samuel Hunter Christie 1854 
 
 1848 Thomas Bell 1854 
 
 1854 William Sharpey 
 
 A list which most persons will look at with respect, though it may not satisfy the 
 critical eyes of Mr. Babbage. The office is laborious and responsible. Is it 
 quite certain that men of the very highest class would always be most useful to 
 science as secretaries of the Royal Society ? I fancy that Faraday, Airy, Owen, 
 &c. are perhaps as advantageously employed at present as they would be in 
 carrying on the business of a Society, much of which is routine. The depre- 
 ciating remarks of Mr. Babbage remind one of the Fox and the Grapes. Mr. 
 Babbage was .Secretary of the Astronomical for sometime, but our books show 
 that his colleague, Francis Baily, did the work. If Professor Stokes takes Mr. 
 Christie's place, the country can supply no better man. 
 
43 
 
 There is a point of view in which the mixed nature of the Royal 
 Society may be considered, which seems to have escaped most 
 of our grumblers ; it is that the union of so much rank, wealth, 
 talent, and even of numbers, gives it great and appropriate weight 
 in such a country as England. The Royal Society provides a 
 competent body to inquire into every discovery and gives imme- 
 diate and extensive publication to whatever is found to be of 
 value. It is no slight advantage to be backed by the goodwill of 
 eight hundred gentlemen, who comprehend almost all the scientific 
 talent of the empire; and if national aid should be required, the 
 influence of the Royal Society, with a good cause, is almost para- 
 mount.* 
 
 In reference to Mr. Babbage's admiration for the social posi- 
 tion of men of science in France, I will quote one passage from 
 Moll's pamphlet. After pointing out the fact, that the incomes of 
 leading men of science under Napoleon were purchased by poli- 
 tical subserviency, he adds, " If we wish to know what the emolu- 
 ment of science is in France, let us recollect the instance of Le- 
 gendre, certainly a real deserving and meritorious man of science. 
 By an arbitrary act of ministers, he was deprived of a scanty pen- 
 sion, his all, and for what ? Because he did not choose to vote 
 for a ministerial candidate for member of the Institute." 
 
 At page 152, an allusion is made to a discussion which took 
 place a few years ago at the Royal Society on some irregularity in 
 an award of one of the royal medals. The irregularity was, if I 
 remember rightly, very candidly admitted, and as there was no 
 real injury done, and no harm meant, the Society in general was, 
 I believe, satisfied. That all parties should agree was scarcely to 
 be expected, but I do not allow that " the Council escaped censure, 
 in consequence of some little want of management in those who 
 proposed it." The fair, and, I believe, true conclusion is that 
 which I have just stated. Mr. Babbage then goes on to say : 
 
 " During this discussion, one of the Fellows of the Royal 
 Society got up and remarked, that although this case was very 
 bad, it became trifling when compared with the circumstances 
 
 * If the Royal Society does not employ this power well, the fault is in the 
 persons of the body, and not in its nature. That it has been sometimes un- 
 wise in its action is likely enough, and sometimes unlucky. As an instance of 
 its want of wisdom, I may mention the recall of Mr. Riimker from Paramatta, 
 and sending Mr. Dunlop in his place, which I believe was its act ; as a specimen 
 of bad luck, I may instance its recommendation to the Government to carry Mr. 
 Babbage's Calculating Machine into execution without some guarantee. The 
 real defect in the Royal Society appears to me to be in the composition of its 
 Council, half of whom must, by statute, be changed every year. A body so 
 frequently decomposed cannot be expected to work with unity or steadiness of 
 purpose ; and if there be any justice in Mr. Babbage's surmise, that the perma- 
 nent officers have too much power, it is a necessary consequence of their being 
 the only persons who have the habit and traditions of office. It is, I conceive, 
 impossible to have efficient Councils where the persons are so frequently changed. 
 As to Jobbery, that is a mental delusion in Mr. Babbage, and vulgar slang in 
 Sir James South, so far as my knowledge goes ; yet I am no blind admirer of the 
 Royal Society. 
 
44 
 
 attending the very first award of the royal medals ; for on that 
 occasion the Council had wilfully violated the laws they had 
 themselves established for their distribution, and that on his for- 
 mally demonstrating the facts by reference to their own minutes, 
 they with singular consistency refused to alter their unfair and 
 unjust decision." The speaker was Mr. Babbage himself; but, to 
 the best of my recollection, he was stopped by a call to order as 
 soon as it appeared that he was going to waste the time of the 
 meeting by reference to past matters which were not before it ; 
 if he had been heard, he would undoubtedly have spoken to the 
 purpose here cited, and so shown very decidedly his want of 
 management. The circumstances attending this first grant of the 
 royal medals has probably some connexion with Mr. Babbage's 
 animosity against the Royal Society, and I should date, conjcctur- 
 ally, the commencement of " Achilles' wrath " from the year 1826. 
 
 Sir Robert Peel, in a letter dated Dec. 3, 1825, informed the 
 President (Davy) that the King would place annually two medals 
 of fifty guineas each at the disposal of the Society.* The Council, 
 Jan. 26, 1826, passed the following resolution: " That the medal 
 be awarded for the most important discoveries or series of investi- 
 gations completed and made known to the Royal Society in the 
 year preceding the day of the award," "j" that is, I presume, St. 
 Andrew's Day, or Nov. 30, of the same year. 
 
 In 1826, Jan. 17, Mr. Babbage communicated a paper to the 
 Society, On a method of expressing by Signs the Action of 
 Machinery, which was read March 16, and printed in the Phil. 
 Trans, for 1826, Part 2. The Council, however, assigned the 
 medals of that year to Dalton and Ivory, the President in his 
 speech giving as a reason " that, though more than one discovery 
 had been announced to the world, yet there were none which could 
 be said to be as yet fairly and securely established." He added, 
 " that the labours which may be said to have acquired their full 
 authority only within a short period" might be considered "within 
 the literal meaning of the foundation." i 
 
 I do not assert that Mr. Babbage considered himself to have 
 had a claim to the royal medal for his memoir in 1826 ; but from 
 his language I conjecture that he thought so." 
 
 In pages 152 and 153 Mr. Babbage favours us with his views 
 
 * I never heard who urged this grant upon Sir Robert, but with all respect to 
 their good intentions, I doubt their wisdom and his. 
 
 t This resolution was soon after rescinded. 
 
 % From the statements at page 139 of The Exposition 0/1851, it would 
 seem that Mechanical Notation has been improving ever since 1826, and is not 
 yet in such a state of completeness as to allow of its being safely published as 
 a well-considered system of signs. 
 
 In these matters there is a sort of compensation. In 1823 the Astrono- 
 mical Society gave Mr. Babbage their gold medal for his Calculating Machine, 
 which was then scarcely more than an idea. I don't believe there was any 
 jobbing, though the leading members of Council were intimate friends of the 
 medallist ; but I think the award was hasty and irregular, and one that does no 
 honour to any one concerned. 
 
45 
 
 
 
 in regard to the conduct of Presidents of exalted rank, or who 
 do not permanently reside in London. The President, he says, 
 communicates with, and is led by, some officer of the Society, who 
 misinforms him as to its wishes ; and this officer misleads the 
 Council and the Society by misrepresenting the wishes of the 
 President. " Under these circumstances, it is difficult to oppose 
 the expressed wishes of the absent President, and, strangely 
 enough, without any intentional deceit, President, Council, and 
 Society, are supposed to be unanimous in doing what each by itself 
 thinks inexpedient." Strange enough, as the American papers 
 say, if true. I thought the Council of the Royal Society, when I 
 belonged to it, rather too compliant with the expressed wishes of 
 the Duke of Sussex, the President, in person,* and that when I 
 opposed him, perhaps too abruptly, I had not the support which 
 should have been given me ; but I never heard of, nor do I believe, 
 such sycophancy as Mr. Babbage imagines. If such a case as 
 he supposes should occur, the mistake would surely be found out, 
 and the deceitful medium got rid of. 
 
 In page 154, Mr. Babbage a second mountain in labour 
 commences his attack upon me in form. He says he had hoped that 
 Mr. Weld's History of the Royal Society, and two criticisms on 
 that work in the Athenceum, would have rendered any further ex- 
 planation respecting the Calculating Machine unnecessary on his 
 part. If Mr. Babbage had paid ordinary attention to what passes, 
 he must have learned that secondary evidence is never taken when 
 primary is to be had, and that no respect can be paid to any account 
 of his conduct which does not proceed directly from himself, and on 
 his own responsibility. I believe implicitly that Mr.^Weld and Mr. 
 De Morgan have stated correctly everything which came to their 
 knowledge, and I believe that, in his communication with them, 
 Mr. Babbage spoke the strict truth to the best of his belief. But 
 the account is neither complete nor satisfactory, and the public 
 never will be, or ought to be, satisfied, till it has a full, true, par- 
 ticular, and connected history from Mr. Babbage's own pen, with 
 documents. Extravagant expectations have been excited, a large 
 sum of money has been wasted, and the blame must naturally rest 
 
 * It was on the subject of the royal medals, which greatly interested him. He 
 came to the Council, and, laying great stress on the King's wishes, proposed 
 certain conditions for their distribution. I said that I would rather not have the 
 Royal medals at all than have them on the conditions which he laid down. I 
 don't mention this either as a very bold or very meritorious act, or that I may 
 prove my own personal exemption from Mr. Babbage's charge, but that I may 
 do justice to the Duke. He had been very kind to me, this was his pet project, 
 and my vexation on having to thwart him made my opposition less courteous 
 than it ought to have been ; but no impatient word fell from him, nor was his 
 subsequent manner to me at all changed. As to the other Presidents in my 
 time Davies Gilbert, the Marquis of Northampton, and the Earl of Rosse I 
 cannot conceive that any one could scruple to speak openly before them, or fency 
 that they would take offence at an honest opinion ( I once brought over the Mar- 
 quis to my opinion in a debate). The fault I should find, if it be a fault, is, that 
 they were too gentle and too considerate. A little more strictness and severity 
 would have saved the Society both time and trouble not unfrequently. 
 
46 
 
 , 
 
 at Mr. Babbage's door, until lie clears himself, which he cannot 
 do by dribbling incomplete revelations through unauthorised 
 channels. 
 
 Mr. Babbage's assertion, that " many persons have expressed 
 their suspicions that some occult agency was at work to preju- 
 dice the government against him," I shall believe, when I hear 
 who those persons are. If such an idea entered any sane head, 
 Mr. Babbage must himself have put it there. The conduct of the 
 government can be explained, I conceive, on much simpler prin- 
 ciples, without looking farther than the proceedings of Mr. Bab- 
 bage himself. 
 
 In the next two pages we are told of Mr. Babbage's attention 
 to the passions and interests of men, of his freedom from all 
 rivalry, of his services as a reformer and politician, &c., all which, 
 to say the least, are disputable, not to say controvertible, points. 
 After this solemn exordium and an illustration from natural his- 
 tory, not particularly probable nor much to the purpose, Mr. Bab- 
 bage proceeds to guide the young enthusiast by the torch of his own 
 experience. Mr. Babbage has, it seems, been the victim " of a 
 quarrel in which he had no part, and with whose origin he is un- 
 acquainted."* 
 
 Mr. Babbage states that two-and-thirty years ago Sir James 
 South was " on terms of intimate friendship with almost all the 
 persons at that time eminent in science," among whom Davy 
 and Wollaston are particularised. I conceive that neither of 
 those eminent persons would have liked to be called "intimate 
 friends " of Sir James South ; they were, no doubt, familiar 
 acquaintance, and dined with him.f That Mr. Fallows was his 
 guest, for the purpose of using his instruments, is also quite true, 
 though the queer termination of that hospitality is not alluded to. 
 It is not true that Sir James South assisted him "in acquiring a 
 practical knowledge of instruments" (beyond the merest rudiments,) 
 for the best of all reasons. This knowledge Mr. Fallows received 
 from Troughton, the common teacher of us all. In return for 
 this hospitality, Mr. Fallows made computations \ which Sir James 
 published in several periodicals, but in his own name. 
 
 At page 157, Mr. Babbage gravely states that " party had 
 been formed adverse to Sir James South" when he was elected 
 President of the Astronomical Society, and that this party elected 
 me as Secretary. It happens, unfortunately, that the very person, 
 
 * Rather a misty indication to the young enthusiast how he is to save 
 himself. 
 
 f So I suppose, though I don't recollect to have seen either of them there. 
 By the way their names are introduced, one would suppose that they had some- 
 thing to do with the Astronomical Society, to which, however, Davy never 
 belonged, and "Wollaston only joined it on his death-bed. 
 
 J So said Dr. Pearson, and I could confirm him by internal evidence, I 
 think their friendship cooled before Mr. Fallows' departure, and I know that 
 Mr. Fallows thought himself ill-used by Sir James while he was residing at the 
 Cape, and complained to his friend Troughton. 
 
47 
 
 who most pressed me to be Secretary, proposed Sir James as Pre- 
 sident, viz. Lieut. Stratford. It is likely enough that the other 
 gentlemen who brought forward Sir James South (Mr. Baily and 
 Captain Beaufort) did so with some scruple, and though they 
 engaged that he should not compromise us by his outbreaks, yet 
 that they were not quite easy about their pledge, and were not 
 sorry to have my aid. Lieut. Stratford, the other Secretary, and 
 at that time on very intimate terms with Sir James, was most 
 anxious to have me for his colleague, and the expression fell from 
 him, he promising to co-operate with me for the same laudable 
 purpose, which he did. So much for Mr. Babbage's mare's-nest : 
 there is not a particle of truth in his suggestion. 
 
 I do not remember the conversation between Mr. Babbage and 
 myself at the meeting of the Greenwich Visitors in March 1831, 
 or the words attributed to me by Mr. Babbage at p. 157. There 
 was a meeting, the real object of which was, as I learned after- 
 wards, to give the Nautical Almanac to Lieut. Stratford. I 
 remember that I agreed with those who thought Mr. Pond was not 
 able to execute the two offices of Astronomer Royal and Superin- 
 tendent of the Nautical Almanac, but I am pretty sure I added 
 the caveat that, in certain cases, the offices would not only be 
 compatible with but ancillary to each other. If Mr. Airy were not 
 present, I mentioned him as a person who could make them so, 
 and I have some faint recollection that Sir J. Lubbock thought 
 so too.* 
 
 Whether on that occasion I expressed my determination to put 
 down Sir James or no, I cannot recollect : but after the narrative 
 I have given of the steps taken by me in that very month to 
 eliminate him from the Council of the Royal Astronomical Society, 
 it is very probable that I did so express myself, if the occasion 
 offered. It is very probable, too, that I expressed then, t or at 
 some other time, my disgust that men of character, like Mr. 
 Babbage and Captain Beaufort, should give Sir James their coun- 
 tenance ; whether I used the words attributed to me by Mr. 
 Babbage then, or at some other time, is of small importance. In 
 persecuting Mr. Pond, and in supporting Sir James South, both 
 Mr. Babbage and Captain Beaufort acted, as it seemed to me, an 
 unbecoming part, and I think so still. 
 
 The inference which I suppose Mr. Babbage means to draw, is, 
 that my persecution of him, and perhaps of Captain Beaufort, com- 
 menced from this date. Now, as to Mr. Babbage, I can only say 
 I voted for him when he was candidate for Finsbury, which must 
 have been two or three years later than this conversation, and 
 though this only proves that I preferred him to his competitors, it 
 
 * Yet, on the late vacancy, if the appointment had rested with me, I should 
 have appointed Mr. Adams. I am very well satisfied, notwithstanding, with the 
 choice of the present Superintendent, Mr. Hind, who is perfectly competent, 
 very zealous, and who has sustained the honour of practical astronomy in this 
 country by his numerous discoveries. 
 
48 
 
 is scarcely consistent with any very malignant feeling towards him. 
 To the best of my recollection, we continued to be on friendly 
 terms up to the time of his giving evidence on the trial in 1835. 
 Sir James South did not, during this period, trouble either the 
 Royal Society, or the Astronomical Society, or the Board of 
 Visitors, with his company ; so the subject matter of dispute 
 between Mr Babbage and me did not offer itself, and we had 
 no other motive for quarrelling. As to Captain Beaufort, I 
 undertook a long and troublesome job for him long after this 
 date (I am afraid I " volunteered" the Captain being in a 
 dilemma,) viz. to give the Admiralty information respecting 
 Groombridge's Catalogue, which was already printed, but which 
 there was some scruple* in publishing. After these facts I 
 think that any words I may have uttered in my indignation at the 
 set made against my friend Pond, by persons who knew nothing 
 of his merits, cannot be considered as of serious import. Whatever 
 I may have said in heat, I have never seriously attacked Admiral 
 Beaufort at all, nor Mr. Babbage till the present time; for though 
 I made no scruple in talking of his defeat in the matter of the 
 great Equatoreal, I have now for the first time published it. The 
 setting him right in a discussion about the planet Neptune can 
 scarcely be styled a putting down. 
 
 At page 157 Mr. Babbage says that, in the course of 1832, 
 the large equatoreal mounting " which had been contrived and 
 executed by Troughton for his friend Sir J. South," was found 
 to be " an entire failure," and that this produced " a difference 
 
 * The work in this form was suppressed, and very deservedly. The prepara- 
 tion and publication of the Catalogue was subsequently undertaken by Mr. 
 Airy, gratuitously, and brought out in a way to do honour to Mr. Groombridge 
 and to the country. But I claim the merit of having pointed out the worthless- 
 ness of the Catalogue as it was originally prepared and printed, and for having 
 saved the Admiralty from the discredit which it would have brought upon the 
 astronomical science of the country, and for this service I merited the thanks of 
 their lordships, which 1 received. It is true that in the course of this very trouble- 
 some investigation, I thought myself ill used by Captain Beaufort, and it was to 
 that usage I must have alluded in the words cited, page 161. Luckily one does 
 not always carry purposes of this nature into effect, and I am sure that the 
 gallant admiral has had no ground of complaint against me, hitherto. But if he 
 thinks so, and will either say so himself or commission Mr. Babbage to say so, I 
 am quite ready to state my ground of dispute with him. " His honest and well- 
 earned fame" certainly " does not need the pen of Mr. Babbage to protect it ;" 
 and indeed I doubt whether that pen would succeed in any defensive operation. 
 Mr. Babbage had better try it in his own defence, which is the more pressing 
 matter. I have already said that the evidence given by Captain Beaufort on the 
 Equatoreal trial was so fair that he was not cross-examined. It was I who par- 
 ticularly desired that he should be invited to inspect the instrument ; and when 
 it was objected that this was a dangerous step, his feelings being so strongly on 
 Sir James's side, I replied that Captain Beaufort was an honourable man, and 
 one who would give true evidence of what he saw, whether v he liked it or not ; 
 adding, that I had no doubt I could show him how to measure a double star 
 with the instrument. Captain Beaufort declined our invitation, as I have already 
 stated, on the ground that he was Sir James's friend. The truth is, that he 
 must have quarrelled with Sir James if he had accepted our offer, and he had 
 many reasons not to wish this. 
 
49 
 
 between friends who esteemed each other highly."* At the' 
 next page he says he has not " the slightest doubt that this 
 unfortunate affair might easily, by the exertion of judicious 
 friends, have terminated in the entire restoration of their former 
 friendship." Why did not these judicious friends step in, then, 
 with Mr. Babbage at their head? What might have been done 
 if Sir James South hid had " a judicious friend" bold enough to 
 speak plain truth to him, and who knew something of mechanics 
 and astronomy, I can't pretend to say ; but he had no such friend, 
 nor do I think he deserved one. The next assertion, " that I 
 took effectual means to prevent this course," is a simple false- 
 hood. I never meddled in the matter at all till the quarrel was 
 established ; and was indeed so completely engaged in the latter 
 half of 1831 and the first half of 1832 with my duties as a 
 Commissioner for settling the boundaries of parliamentary boroughs, 
 that I knew very little about the matter. I have already stated 
 that the quarrel was fully engaged, and beyond the making up 
 even of such an arch-peacemaker as Mr. Babbage himself, when 
 I interfered ; and this is well known to Mr. Airy and Mr. Simms, 
 somewhat better judges of the temper of that high-spirited old 
 man than Mr. Babbage. 
 
 I have already mentioned how and why I "volunteered" my 
 services to remedy the faults in the great equatoreal, and to make 
 Sir James South pay his just debts. Sir James's declaration, 
 " that no one could have been pitched upon more obnoxious" to him 
 than I, may be true enough ; but there was no one else, that I have 
 ever heard of (will Mr. Babbage suggest one ?), who was able and 
 willing to undertake such a job. If Sir James had been a man of 
 sense and temper, he would have looked on me as a mere workman 
 belonging to the firm (he did so at times, but could not act con- 
 sistently), and consoled himself with the reflection, that if I 
 succeeded, he might profit by it, and if I failed, he was no worse 
 off than before; while I should, to some extent, be discredited. 
 Wlien Mr. Babbage adds, " that it was at last discovered that no 
 after contrivances or expense could correct the errors of an instru- 
 ment, itself radically defective in principle," he says what is false, 
 as I have already proved.f The arbitrator thought differently, 
 and he is a somewhat different authority from Mr. Babbage. 
 
 If the correspondence with Sir James was " irritating," it was 
 
 * Knowing Troughton a good deal better than Mr. Babbage did or than Sir 
 James could dn, I should qualify this " high esteem" very considerably. 
 Troughton was flattered by Sir James's culte, but he never thought him, I know, 
 either a guarded speaker or a liberal man to deal with, or a man of any 
 science ; and I have heard him express these opinions in pretty clear language, 
 long before the quarrel. 
 
 f Must I again remind Mr. Babbage of his admission, " that he did not know 
 so much of the instrument as those who had spent much more time over it," and 
 that he really knew nothing whatever ? After the instruction he received on his 
 cross-examination, something better might have been expected from him than a 
 repetition of his old mumpsimus. 
 
 D 
 
50 
 
 his own fault. No doubt I quizzed his grandiloquence ; but when 
 he wrote as became him, I replied as became me. Let him publish 
 the correspondence ; he printed it long ago. 
 
 I have no doubt that Mr. Babbage does find it very " curious 
 to observe the vigour and energy with which I applied myself to 
 the exercise of my earlier studies." I did know something of law 
 and a little mechanics and astronomy ; and I had temper and cou- 
 rage enough to make successful use of this knowledge. Whether I 
 deserve praise or blame depends on the subject-matter on which 
 these qualities were employed. I am sure that my cause was a 
 righteous one, and who thinks otherwise ? I did cross-examine 
 Mr. Savage to save time (Mr. Starkie was absent during the 
 examination in chief), and I succeeded in my cross-examination.* 
 
 Mr. Babbage now comes to his cheval de bataille, that " I 
 undertook to intimidate witnesses on the opposite side." He, no 
 doubt, believes this ; but it is a delusion, and rests upon no solid 
 foundation of fact or probability. Let him name the persons inti- 
 midated. Mr. Babbage says he was reluctant to be a witness : it is 
 a pity that he overcame this reluctance. He says " that Lord 
 Abinger represented to him that his evidence was essential for the 
 justice of the case," and that on that ground he reluctantly waived 
 his objection to appear. Now what Mr. Babbage ought to have 
 done was, to have declined taking any part unless Sir James South 
 would first act f airly , i. e. allow the instrument to be finished. 
 If he told Lord Abiriger, or anybody else, that his evidence 
 was important in a cause, of course he would be told that he 
 ought to produce it. I don't suppose Lord Abinger knew any- 
 thing of equatoreals, or anything about the matter at all, except 
 what he learned from Mr. Babbage. But he was a lawyer and 
 also a lord, and, therefore, Mr. Babbage thinks he was an autho- 
 rity in morals. I think, on the contrary, that his opinion was 
 that of one who speaks on imperfect data about a matter of 
 which he is ignorant: I believe that he would have highly 
 lauded my conduct, if I had consulted him about it. The truth I 
 fancy to be, that Mr. Babbage sought this employment, having a 
 very erroneous estimate of his powers, and not sorry to exercise 
 them at the expense of persons whom he disliked. Besides this, 
 he had really no choice left him, unless he chose to quarrel with 
 his friend, which, on many accounts, he did not wish. Mr. 
 Babbage has a considerable taint of flunkeyism, and would not 
 willingly exclude himself from a house where he might not 
 unfrequently meet with people of rank. He has also another use 
 
 * Some of my friends, who are also Mr. Babbage's friends, think his de- 
 scription of my "vigour and energy" highly laudatory. I think he only does 
 me justice. If I had "volunteered" my services (even at the suggestion of a 
 noble lord), and then upset my client, and disgraced myself by my profound 
 ignorance of the commonest mechanical truths and my incapacity to analyse my 
 own experiments, I should feel very much ashamed of having thrust myself 
 forward. 
 
51 
 
 for Sir James' acquaintance, viz., to give himself a supporter, 
 though but a mean one, in his spiteful attacks.* 
 
 I have already given an account of the wrangling between 
 Mr. Babbage and myself, which is more full and far more accurate 
 than that which the reader will find at page 1 60. I am sure that 
 my threats applied to the cross-examination ; in which I intended 
 to expose the mechanical ignorance exhibited in Mr. Babbage's 
 examination in chief, and to the future publication of this ig- 
 norance. I intended, undoubtedly, to discredit his evidence, and 
 I think I did so. If I alluded to another subject, it was to Mr. 
 Babbage's conduct as Lucasian Professor. But if I had said all 
 that Mr. Babbage puts into my mouth, what then ? I suppose 
 that he and his friend Sir James, though the largest and least 
 fair dealers in the practice, have no exclusive privilege " for 
 showing people up." I don't know what weapons Mr. Babbage 
 suspects me of employing, nor do I think his measures for making 
 them inoperative by a whining complaint to the arbitrator were 
 very effective or judicious. He seemed to me like a lubberly 
 school-lad, who, having picked a quarrel, and got thrashed, comes 
 with his finger in his eye to complain to his master. The arbi- 
 trator did not see anything in it, except, perhaps, a childish 
 squabble between two grown men. His only remark was, 
 "that it was agreeable to find, though of course it was to be 
 expected, that two gentlemen agreed in giving the same account 
 of the same conversation." Not one word of blame. He could 
 not have believed, therefore, that I had " undertaken to intimidate 
 witnesses," still less, that I had attempted to frighten Mr. Babbage 
 into " modifying his evidence." 
 
 The subsequent paragraph is still more remarkable. " As he had 
 ventured, after my having given evidence on oath, to threaten me 
 with injury, with the hope of inducing me to modify that evidence 
 on cross-examination, it appeared to me probable that he might 
 have been tampering with the evidence of other witnesses in the 
 same cause, who, from their position or circumstances in life, 
 might be compelled by the fear of his vengeance to shape their 
 evidence so as to adapt it to his views." I own that if I had 
 threatened Mr. Babbage before he had given his evidence, there 
 might have been some shadow of excuse for his insinuation, 
 though I should have thought any one who feared such a threat a 
 very hen-hearted fellow. But after examination naturally comes 
 cross-examination, and the publication of his blunders formed 
 the substance of my threat. I have, perhaps, no very high 
 opinion of Mr. Babbage's moral courage, but I certainly never 
 rated Him so low as to believe he would "modify his evidence" 
 from fear, nor do I believe that such an imagination can issue 
 from a sane brain. I deny any attempt to intimidate any one, and 
 
 * It is curious that the " Thirty -nine Charges " followed soon after " The 
 Decline," and that the letter in the Mechanics' Magazine seemed suggested by 
 an account of " The Exposition 0/1851." It is curious, I mean, if accidental. 
 
52 
 
 must trouble Mr. Babbage to mention names if he wishes to escape 
 a very unpleasant designation. Sir James South, indeed, did 
 threaten with his displeasure all those who should examine the 
 equatoreal on our invitation (I have mentioned his behaviour to 
 Mr. Bramah) ; and he threw in our way all the obstacles he could ; 
 which was dishonourable enough, besides being unavailing. 
 
 I ask, why should I wish Mr. Babbage to " modify his evidence;" 
 and in what way could it be modified to suit us better than it did? 
 I am unable to suggest any improvement in it for our purposes. 
 It suited us to a tittle, and I would not have lost it for a great 
 deal at that time. I will explain this to Mr. Babbage. Before 
 Dr. Robinson's observations, we only knew the qualities of the 
 instrument as a micrometrical instrument, and it was possible that 
 some serious errors might have existed without our knowledge. 
 TJhese would have damaged our case, if it were considered that we 
 had ever undertaken to do anything specific, anything more than 
 our best. The question might easily have come to depend upon 
 this, whether in making a new instrument, under the defendant's 
 constant superintendence and perpetual direction, we had not a 
 right to be paid, even in case of failure, unless our ignorance was 
 palpable. We elicited from almost every one of the defendant's 
 witnesses, that he had a scheme of his own for mounting an 
 equatoreal, some of them absurd enough. The general ignorance 
 of the defects and of the causes of the defects of the large equatoreal, 
 were carefully noted as the several witnesses were produced ; but 
 in this respect Mr. Babbage was more valuable than a score of 
 common mortals. The blunders of the Lucasian professor, of the 
 inventor of the Calculating Machine, &c., were sufficient to 
 cover ours, if they had been far larger than we knew they could 
 be. If Mr. Babbage did not understand these matters, with the 
 instrument before him, how is it possible, we should have said, 
 had we failed that we could foresee them? At that time I 
 considered Mr. Babbage's ignorance as a sort of sheet-anchor on 
 which we might rely, if everything else failed us. Happily there 
 was no need of this line of defence, and Mr. Babbage and his 
 evidence dropped quietly out of the argument as much as if 
 they had never been.* 
 
 What right has Mr. Babbage to state in this undoubting man- 
 ner, what my motives were for threatening him with exposure (not 
 injury, be it understood) ? He did not venture on any such inter- 
 pretation when he complained to the arbitrator (he would only 
 have got himself laughed at), and I believe it to be an after- 
 thought, to season his accusation. I say that it is an utter false- 
 , hood, and I suppose I am a better judge of my motives tffian Mr. 
 
 * I must, in justice, say that Mr. Babbage's experimental proof of the small 
 bending of the axis, though he did not understand it, in conjunction with my own 
 proof of non-twist, did yeoman's service with a considerable number of witnesses, 
 who had passed muster well enough, after dinner, at Campden Hill. They were 
 Scylla and Charybdis, with this difference, that the poor men fell into both, often 
 without knowing it; for when we felt the arbitrator was satisfied, we stopped. 
 
53 
 
 Babbage can be. I felt great contempt for Mr. Babbage's conduct, 
 and for his mechanical and astronomical ignorance ; and I ex- 
 pressed it very openly, and to himself. This is a plain statement 
 which Mr. Babbage's super-subtle understanding cannot comprehend. 
 
 Mr. Babbage does not seem to understand that, when you ap- 
 peal to a man's own evidence against himself upon any point, you 
 must cite all that relates to that point. He says I threatened 
 him ; yet he takes no notice of what I also said before the arbi- 
 trator, " that I would not attack him underhand." I suppose 
 every one will see that this engagement limits the extent of the 
 threat, and confines it to open and avowed proceedings such, for 
 instance, as this present pamphlet. Mr. Babbage is not possessed 
 of, I suspect he does not comprehend, the chivalrous feeling which 
 makes it a duty not to attack any one secretly ; and I do not 
 expect him to believe that, on account of this very quarrel between 
 us, if not for other reasons, I should have abstained most scrupu- 
 lously from earwigging any one to the detriment of his Calculating 
 or Analytical Machine. If I had ever spoken on the subject pro 
 or con and I am pretty sure I never did I should have stated 
 at the same time my own ignorance on the subject, and that I 
 was not on good terms with the inventor. But I have always 
 confined myself strictly to one point the necessity of fuller, and 
 clearer, and better information on the subject. 
 
 The passages quoted as mine in page 161, are pulled out of the 
 context ; they may be mine or they may not, and I have nothing 
 to remark upon them which I have not said already. In talking 
 to Mr. Babbage, I may have spoken unguardedly, and said more 
 than I should have done, had I been less excited. I did not sup- 
 pose that I was talking to all the world when I was pouring out 
 my spleen in Mr. Babbage's ears. I do not allow that Mr. Bab- 
 bage's statement, where it differs from mine, is correct. In his 
 account to the arbitrator of our conversation he omitted the main 
 point of my rebuke, that he had espoused the cause of a man who, 
 as he himself admitted, had not acted honestly in refusing us per- 
 mission to finish and prove our work, and who was moreover a 
 quack and charlatan.* The short-hand writer might very easily 
 'have taken down Mr. Babbage's speech (perhaps it was written 
 beforehand, for my adversary is not a very ready orator), but if I 
 am to judge by the disconnected sentences attributed to me, I 
 should say that he had failed in reporting me. If I had the whole 
 before me I could possibly explain what was said and meant, 
 though it is really a matter of no consequence. 
 
 * Mr. Babbage, in complaining to the arbitrator, narrated only a portion, and 
 the least material portion, of what I said. I might have set him right in this 
 respect, if it had been worth while, but it was not : the whole was extraneous to 
 the cause in hand, and I did not choose to waste any time in debating imma- 
 terial issues. I knew that the arbitrator could not be swayed by any such non- 
 sensical whining, and I admitted what I had really said, though it did not give 
 a correct notion of what had passed. The indifference of the arbitrator's remark 
 shows what he thought of the matter. 
 
54 
 
 When Mr. Babbage says, p. 162, "that a decision not satis- 
 factory to either party was given in December 1838," he says 
 that which is virtually untrue. Sir James was condemned to pay 
 the whole of the bill, including the expense of the " after contri- 
 vances," which were applied under a special agreement that they 
 were only to be paid for if successful. We got everything except 
 our costs of the arbitration, and came out of the affair " with 
 clean faces." 
 
 At page 162, there is a sort of insinuation that the Astro- 
 nomer Royal and I persecuted Sir James through the press. 
 As far as I remember, I only replied to his attacks ; and Mr. Airy 
 only noticed him when assailed by Sir James in the matter of the 
 " Newcastle Lad," and when, years afterwards, the easiness of Sir 
 Robert Inglis had given some weight to some of Sir James's igno- 
 rant remarks. Mr. Babbage must know this, and cannot be 
 excused for his misrepresentation. 
 
 Sir James was in the habit of writing and printing inso- 
 lent letters and making anonymous attacks on respectable people, 
 and am I to be made accountable for the disgust which he 
 excited ? If, when the ass's bray frightened the beasts, one 
 better acquainted with the origin of the sound had lifted up 
 a corner of the lion's skin and exhibited the long ears beneath, 
 I suppose Neddy would have found himself in a " difficulty ; " 
 but his friends, unless they were very near relations, would lay 
 the blame on his own meddling and mischievous disposition. I 
 always knew to what genus Sir James belonged, and when I 
 found him as mischievous and troublesome as a real beast of prey, 
 I plucked aside a little of the hide in which he was disguised. 
 
 It was from Mr. Babbage's own book, or rather from Mr. 
 Airy's account of it, I first heard that I was supposed to have 
 meddled about the Calculating Machine, and I heard it with 
 unfeigned surprise. As to my leading Mr. Airy, the notion 
 could only come into the head of one who knows neither of us, 
 or who, like Mr. Babbage, knows nothing of character.* 
 
 If Mr. Babbage's " curious, though painful study," has pro- 
 duced no more accurate results than those with which he has 
 favoured us in pp. 162, et seq., it is a pity he gave himself so much 
 labour in vain. 
 
 I never heard of " any system of disparagement" against any man 
 of science "who refused to give up his ancient social relations with 
 
 * A person better acquainted with Mr. Airy and myself than Mr. Babbage is, 
 but who, being one of the unlearned, is not able to see why I defer to the 
 Astronomer Royal so readily and implicitly in his own department, said, that 
 " I acted the faithful Perch to his Dombey." I don't quite allow the truth of 
 this comparison, but it has some appearance. We know each other very well, 
 and I believe have implicit confidence in each other as men of integrity and 
 veracity. But though we agree on very many points, I can't think my respect 
 for him has anything servile or sneaking. As to Mr. Airy, he is the best public 
 servant I know able, conscientious, and indefatigable ; willing enough to listen 
 to reasonable argument, but much more like a " nasus aheneits" than " a nose 
 of wax." 
 
55 
 
 Sir James South." I never heard that any man of science had been 
 asked to give up his acquaintance, and I am sure I never asked 
 any one to do so. I never had any "party," I was not the 
 " organ of any party," nor was there ever any " party," so far as 
 I know, "whose avowed object it was to discredit and put 
 down every (or any) respectable person who supported Sir J. 
 South." 
 
 In the " melancholy " picture which Mr. Babbage draws of the 
 effect of this "party" (which never existed and whose members 
 are unknown), I recognise no feature of truth or of probability. I 
 know some men whose moral courage is less developed than their 
 other excellent qualities, but I am happy to say that I do not know 
 one man such a pitiful coward as to be "intimidated into silence" 
 by the means Mr. Babbage conjures up, or such a fool as to believe 
 in the possibility of such menaces being carried into effect. That 
 men of science should gradually have dropped Sir James's acquaint- 
 ance is intelligible enough. As his boldness increased, his igno- 
 rance became more conspicuous, and his ill-nature, insolence, and 
 love of backbiting, less tolerable.* Men who respected themselves 
 could not be very long in finding out that it did not become them 
 to be made parties to his outbreaks. " One after another almost all 
 Sir James South's old friends and acquaintances amongst men of 
 science have been," I dare say, " alienated from him ;" but it has 
 been by his own offensive conduct. I never used any means, or 
 persuasion, or intimidation, to bring this about, though I knew Sir 
 James had tried to induce Mr. Baily and Lieutenant Stratford 
 to give up my acquaintance. The nearest approach to this kind 
 of interference (which I hold to be gross impertinence, and one 
 no gentleman would offer or tolerate) I ever made, was in some- 
 times warning strangers not to believe too readily what Sir James 
 
 South said of me, and when I advised not to buy a telescope 
 
 of him, because, in Troughton's words, " he was a screw," and 
 sold dear pennyworths. 
 
 Of the men who were "alarmed about their astronomical inaccu- 
 racies or their mathematics," of " the timid who feared the anger of 
 the dominant party," the " young who dreaded spoiling their pro- 
 spects," and the old who loved their repose, and " sided with the 
 most numerous party," I can only say that they are the creations 
 of Mr. Babbage's heated brain, and have no more real existence 
 than Don Quixote's giants. I ask for the name of any one indivi- 
 dual of these classes; I don't know one. As to the "numerous 
 party," of whom I am dubbed captain, I must say that I am also 
 lieutenant, serjeant, corporal, rank and file, and drummer, for be- 
 
 * People who remember me at Blackmail Street, or elsewhere, in company 
 with Sir James, will bear me witness that I never performed kootoo to him. A 
 man of violent temper and unsubdued manners is frequently allowed great license 
 (especially when he is your Amphitryon) for the sake of peace. In my younger 
 days I did not object to a war of words, and if Sir James had had the luck to 
 have more such acquaintance, and could have kept them, he would have been in 
 far better odour than, according to Mr. Babbage, he now is. 
 
56 
 
 sides myself, I can name no one. Every one who knows me, knows 
 this as well as I. 
 
 Mr. Babbage considers it " obvious to all who have observed 
 society, that such a system of ' discrediting' carried on for years, 
 especially against one too much occupied, or too proud to expose it, 
 must end in establishing the set of opinions propagated by the 
 party." I can only pretend to know the society I have lived in, 
 and in that society I am certain that no such effect would follow, 
 unless the " discrediting" were based on truth. It is not sug- 
 gested, at least not directly, that any attempts have been made " by 
 the party" to carry on their nefarious persecutions through the 
 press, an organ which might mislead the ignorant and unwary, 
 who are numerous enough. " The party " has not been pulled up 
 for anonymous slanders, nor has it vended its libels and falsehoods 
 under deceptive titles, nor expanded them into fallacious generali- 
 ties, which require some slight knowledge of men and things for 
 their detection. The charge that I have had such a baneful and 
 powerful influence over men of science, and over society, would 
 lead me to suspect a mystification, if I were not aware that fun 
 forms no ingredient of Mr. Babbage's character. But the Diplo- 
 mate himself, in Scribe's vaudeville, is not more innocent of all 
 intrigue than I. 
 
 It seems the secret workings of " the party" have "misled the 
 various administrations with whom decisions relative to the Dif- 
 ference Engine rested," and, Mr. Babbage opines, that such a 
 result was almost inevitable, unless the ministers " had been highly 
 skilled in mathematical science, or deeply read in human nature." 
 Mr. Babbage and I agree for once " that the former qualification 
 is unnecessary." He thinks " the latter indispensable for a states- 
 man," while I deem it only very desirable, i. e., as an accompani- 
 ment to good sense, honesty, and resolution. Unluckily, only one 
 prime minister out of eight, the Duke of Wellington, chose to give 
 a specimen of his skill in reading Mr. Babbage's character, and as 
 he recommended that a grant of 3000/. should be made, it might 
 be assumed that his reading was favourable. It is doing more 
 justice to the Duke of Wellington to think that he was guided by 
 the very strong representation conveyed to him by the Duke of 
 Somerset, Lord Ashley, Dr. Fitton, Mr. Baily, Sir John Herschel, 
 and others, (some of whom were probably considered by him as 
 sufficient guarantees,) rather than by any pretence to deep reading 
 of human nature.* 
 
 * A college .contemporary of Mr. Babbage and mine, who was certainly not 
 favoured by the graces, though. an excellent scholar and teacher, made numerous 
 applications for grammar-schools, but always unsuccessfully. Instead of relying 
 on his testimonials, he would go and show himself personally to the electors, 
 trusting, I suppose, to " their reading in human nature." Whether Mr. Bab- 
 
 bage would have had the same fate as honest I can't Ray, but sure I am he 
 
 did not take the best means to obtain his ends. His vanity led him to wish for 
 interviews, in which he must inevitably have bored the unfortunate premier, 
 without the possibility of enlightening him (Mr. Babbage is not very lucid in his 
 
57 
 
 I do not understand the first paragraph at page 165. Mr. 
 Babbage says, " It is always difficult to trace intriguers up to a 
 direct intercourse with Government. In the present case, the 
 vanity of some of them overcame their judgment, and they gave 
 themselves out as advisers of the Government on scientific sub- 
 jects. To these I shall not at present refer, but confine myself to 
 citing from official documents two cases of direct communication 
 with the Government by persons on whose j udgment it appears to 
 have relied." Mr. Babbage then proceeds to instance me as one 
 " in whose devotion to their interests the Whigs had great con- 
 fidence," since they appointed me a Boundary Commissioner and a 
 member of the Standard Measure Commission,* and the Astronomer 
 
 explanations). When our common friend Lieutenant Drummond was private 
 secretary to Lord Althorp, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, I called on him to 
 beg that he would get leave to admit the object-glass of the Northumberland 
 Equatoreal free of duty. He expressed the greatest willingness, saying that it 
 was a pleasure to perform such reasonable requests. He then turned the con- 
 versation on Mr. Babbage, who might, he said, have what money he chose to 
 apply for; but, he added, nothing I believe will satisfy him, unless the Cabinet 
 Ministers go in a body to visit the Machine. Lieut. Drummond probably spoke 
 in a little pet, for he was a great ally of Mr. Babbage ; but I am pretty sure that 
 he only gave a ludicrous view of what was true in the main, and that Mr. Bab- 
 bage's continual efforts to bring himself personally into contact with great people 
 was injurious to him. The simple man of science would have encountered far 
 fewer difficulties, and with a little common sense and perception, no difficulties 
 at all. 
 
 * Mr. Babbage says, " The Whigs seemed to have had great confidence 
 in the devotion of the Rev. R. Sheepshanks to their interests, since they took 
 the extraordinary step of appointing him, although a clergyman, one of the 
 Boundary Commissioners under the Reform-bill ; and he is, I believe, at present 
 one of the Standard-Measure Commissioners." The Whigs (if any of the lords 
 or gentlemen meant by Mr. Babbage read his book ) must be surprised to find 
 that they have bestowed their confidence on a person utterly unknown to them, 
 or only remembered for a bizarre name. I was asked by a personal friend, Lieut. 
 Drummond, to act as a Boundary Commissioner, and being myself a very strong 
 reformer, T thought it would be cowardice to refuse, as I had at that time no 
 duties, either in College, or elsewhere. The only compensation held out to the 
 Commissioners was, that their travelling expenses were to be paid. So long as 
 I travelled with my very dear and Tory friend, the late Mr. Tallents (as Mr. 
 Tallents was the confidential agent of the late Duke of Newcastle, he was 
 scarcely "devoted" to Whig interests), he sent in the amount of our joint 
 expenses, which were paid ; but when I travelled by myself, I did so at my 
 own charge, thinking that I should have spent the same money with less satis- 
 faction if I had been travelling for my amusement. I was engaged pretty 
 constantly for several months, with an interval of rather serious sickness, and 
 the only reward I ever got or expected was one frank from Lord Althorp. 
 Not but that I was richly repaid. I had had my share a very little one, to 
 be sure in that great Conservative measure, about which I felt as much 
 interest as Lord John Russell himself. I had the satisfaction of finding, that 
 while I was brought into contact with persons of very different politics and in 
 very different stations, I never gave any offence, to the best of my belief, or re- 
 ceived any, to my certain knowledge. I have no reason to think that any 
 deception was practised on me, or any information refused me ; and my only differ- 
 ence with my excellent colleague was, that his anxiety to do his duty endangered 
 his delicate health, which I knew was of vast importance to his family and others. 
 I obtained besides, from my intimate acquaintance with the details of that mea- 
 sure, the full conviction of the perfect fairness of the principal Reform ministers, 
 Lord Grey, Lord Althorp, and Lord John Russell. In no one instance, to my know- 
 
58 
 
 Royal as another. I suppose, therefore, that we are the " two 
 cases." As a Boundary Commissioner I might undoubtedly have 
 communicated with Lord John Russell upon boundary subjects, 
 during the existence of the Commission, that is to say, twenty-two 
 years ago, or three years before my squabble with Mr. Babbage. 
 But, odd as it may seem to MM. Babbage and South, I never 
 asked for an interview with Lord John, as I had no difficulties 
 which were beyond the solution of Lieutenant Drummond. My 
 respect for my political chief did not induce me to thrust myself 
 on his attention, or to take up his time unnecessarily. If I had 
 been as much of a flunkey as my antagonists, perhaps I should 
 have acted differently ; but even then I should have kept to my 
 business, and not introduced other subjects. As one of the 
 Standard Measure Commission, I have not communicated with 
 any higher authority than Mr. Airy, nor have I had the least wish 
 to do so. I have no reason to suppose that Government relied 
 upon my judgment in any other matter ; perhaps, if I thought it 
 worth while, I could show Mr. Babbage why it was unlikely that 
 I should be applied to ; it is certain that I never was. 
 
 Mr. Babbage follows up my case with objecting to Mr. Airy 
 that he has been placed by Government on several Commissions, 
 but he does not mention that, with the exception of the Railway 
 Guage Commission, for which some compensation was made, these 
 
 ledge, was any attempt made to influence or overrule the deliberate decisions of 
 the Commissioners. I can say of myself, and I believe it of all my colleagues, 
 that we never considered, probably did not know, the party effect of our recom- 
 mendations ; and I learned experimentally that the world in general is far more 
 honourable and high-minded than Souths and Babbages et hoc genus omne 
 would try to make us believe. With this conviction, and the belief that I was 
 useful in an important national transaction, I cared little enough for the sneers of 
 Mr. Croker, even at the time- Now, when all the world is on my side, I feel 
 obliged to my blundering adversary for giving me so good an opportunity to 
 glorify myself. 
 
 As to the Standard-Measure Commission, I was asked to belong to it by the 
 late J. D. Bethune, who died an irreparable loss to education and humanity 
 some time ago in India. He was Sir James South's counsel in the trial about the 
 equatoreal, and a friend to both Mr. Babbage and me. He asked me if I would 
 serve with Mr. Babbage, and my answer was that I would not, that I had never 
 known a useful proposition come out of Mr. Babbage's mouth, and that he always 
 had been, in my experience, a drag, and not a very pleasant one, on all business. 
 After the Commission was appointed, the unanimous opinion of the members 
 marked out Francis Baily as the fittest person to undertake the restoration of the 
 Standard Yard ; and Sir Robert Peel offered him a very handsome salary, which 
 he, of course, declined. On Baily 's death, which happened before any con- 
 siderable progress was made, I, as his friend, and as the only disposable member 
 of the Commission, " volunteered" my services, also gratuitously, which were 
 accepted. The history of this tedious and laborious work will, I trust, appear 
 elsewhere, and before long. I will only say, that for several years it has formed 
 my occupation when the state of my eyes and my general health enabled me to 
 carry it on satisfactorily ; that my extra personal expenses on this account have 
 been something considerable, as may be easily conceived when it is known that 
 I reside at Reading, and my work is at Somerset House ; and that, like Mr. 
 Pickwick and his friends, I " defray my own expenses." I have received all the 
 remuneration I ever expected, a letter of thanks from the Treasury, and am 
 perfectly satisfied if I am thought to have done my duty. 
 
59 
 
 Commissions were unpaid ones like my own. That the services 
 of the Astronomer Royal in the disputed question of the guages 
 were of a most important and valuable nature, few, now that the 
 heat of contest is over, will deny. How far the Government 
 ought to avail themselves of the abilities of their officers, is a 
 matter in which I differ from Mr. Babbage. It is not suggested 
 that any of the prescribed duties of the Astronomer Royal have 
 been neglected. The Visitors of the Royal Observatory have 
 over and over again expressed their admiration of the manner 
 in which that magnificent establishment has been conducted. 
 Owing to his own admirable method, supported by the zeal and 
 talent of Mr. Main, and by all the assistants, the Astronomer 
 Royal can find time to give the most effective assistance to 
 almost every branch of science related to his own, and to an 
 extent which astonishes even me, who know his peculiar talents 
 and habits and industry.* 
 
 As to Mr. Babbage's assertion, pp. 166, 167, " that Mr. Airy 
 wishes himself to be considered the general referee of the govern- 
 ment in all scientific questions," it is bad reasoning when good 
 reasoning would have better served him. Mr. Airy has said that 
 " the government gave him an additional computer, to make up for 
 the interruption caused by rating so many chronometers, and his 
 
 * If Mr. Babbage knew, what he ought to know, that the Royal Observatory 
 was founded chiefly to aid navigation, he would admit that the subject of harbours, 
 whether tidal or of refuge, belonged properly enough to the Astronomer Royal. 
 The observations of the moon are particularly directed to be made for the same 
 reason, and who has pursued the moon with the assiduity of Mr. Airy ? Irre- 
 proachable as Astronomer Royal, is he to be blamed if he gives his extra time 
 gratuitously to the Government, or to his friends, or to the Royal and Royal 
 Astronomical Societies, or to publishing the unfinished works of deceased astro- 
 nomers, or to making himself generally useful to science in England? As President 
 of the Standard Measure Commission, Mr. Airy did all the work of President and 
 Secretary ; and, as to my own department, I am proud to say that I consider 
 myself to have worked under his direction (teazing him greatly by my scruples 
 and delays), calling upon him whenever I wanted help, and throwing the calcula- 
 tions, &c., upon his broad shoulders. Before me, Colby and Baily did the same 
 thing, and several members of the Board of Visitors have availed themselves of the 
 same almost unerring guidance. To the Astronomer Royal we owe the reduction 
 of all the Greenwich Lunar and Planetary Observations, the publication of Groom- 
 bridge's Catalogue in an honest and correct form, the observations of Fallows and 
 Catton, and, if it should please God to continue his life, we may expect more 
 of those " diversions from their legitimate object," in addition to " the direction 
 of the many arduous duties of the establishment over which he presides." 
 Besides many valuable papers on optical and astronomical subjects, which, per- 
 haps, Mr. Babbage would allow to be not altogether " illegitimate objects," Mr. 
 Airy discovered the cause of the disturbance of the compass in iron ships, deter- 
 mined its laws, and gave easy practical rules for correcting its effects. Before 
 this investigation, an iron ship could scarcely lose sight of land without the most 
 imminent peril. If the Government applies to the Astronomer Royal on scientific 
 matters in his range, it is because there is no better man, I think no one half 
 
 good. Mr. Aivy's firmness and straightforwardness correspond to his intellec- 
 al qualities. He is no jobber, nor could any jobber make use of him. I can 
 ly account for Mr. Babbage's objection to Mr. Airy as a Government adviser, 
 
 on the Irishman's principle, who declined to be tried by ( 
 
 knowing too much about it, and asked for a Galway jury. 
 
60 
 
 own employment elsewhere," i. e. on Government business : " that 
 he considers the Royal Observatory not a mere isolated place for 
 astronomical observations, but as a most important part of the 
 scientific institutions of the country :" that,"" he has been uniformly 
 supported by the confidence of the Government ;" that " his ener- 
 gies have not been wholly absorbed in the mere astronomy of the 
 Observatory, as he has given opinions on subjects of railways and 
 other mechanical matters referred to him by Government." * These 
 are all matters of fact, stated for the satisfaction of the Visitors, 
 and with some pardonable self-gratulation in the Astronomer. 
 
 They prove that Mr. Airy has been treated wisely and con- 
 siderately by the Government in his capacity of Director of the 
 Royal Observatory, and that he has given his opinions on some 
 mechanical matters referred to him. The conclusion which Mr. 
 Babbage was justified in drawing is, that the Calculating Machine 
 might be included among " the other mechanical matters ; " and on 
 this basis he might have framed a hypothetical structure of more 
 or less probability. But Mr. Babbage, who is not very careful in 
 matters of reasoning, deduces, as his inference, that " the Astrono- 
 mer Royal wishes himself to be considered the general referee of 
 Government in all scientific questions," which is impertinent as to 
 data propounded, and to the conclusion which was desired. There 
 is no evidence as to Mr. Airy's wishes, and his wishes have no 
 bearing on the matter. 
 
 At the bottom of the page in which Mr. Babbage has stated 
 Mr. Airy's " wish to be considered as the general referee of Go- 
 vernment in all scientific subjects," he improves his proposition 
 into the following form : " According to the Astronomer Royal's 
 own statement, he was their adviser on all scientific subjects," 
 which reminds me of the story of the three black crows. I call 
 particular attention to the process by which Mr. Babbage arrives 
 at his conclusion, it is very instructive as to his state of mind and 
 reasoning powers. A man who can get so wide of the mark in a 
 couple of pages, and print them, is not a very safe guide. 
 
 " He was too warm on picking work to dwell 
 So faggoted his notions as they fell, 
 And if they rhymed and rattled all was well." 
 
 Sir Thomas More would have advised him to versify his book. 
 
 I never heard that the Government did consult Mr. Airy about 
 the Calculating Machine before I learned it from Mr. Babbage' s 
 book ; but I say very decidedly that, if the Government did consult 
 Mr. Airy, it acted very wisely ; and if he gave any opinion, I think 
 
 * I suppose this is what is alluded to in the dark passage, p. 165, that " the 
 vanity of some of them overcame their judgment, and they gave themselves out as 
 advisers of the Government on scientific subjects." Mr. Babbage is no doubt an 
 excellent person for scenting out vanity, though perhaps he does not sufficiently 
 distinguish it from the consciousness of merit ; but why does he use the plural 
 number, and so, grammatically at least, join me with Mr. Airy ? 
 
61 
 
 it almost certain it was a judicious one. The best authority in this 
 country, except, perhaps, the Astronomer Royal, the late Dr. 
 Thomas Young, thought the money to be laid out on the Calculating 
 Machine would be better employed as a fund for calculation. 
 Seeing that we have got nothing for our 17,000/. but Mr. Bab- 
 bage's grumbling, I think many people will be of Dr. Thomas 
 Young's opinion, though it earned -him the undying hostility of Mr. 
 Babbage. Perhaps this is only another instance of my conspiracy 
 to discredit Mr. Babbage on account of the evidence he gave about 
 the great equatoreal. That Young died before the equatoreal was 
 commenced, and that I only just knew him to speak to, need not 
 stand in the way of Mr. Babbage's fertile imagination when he 
 discovers my next plot.* I had as much to do with Dr. Young's 
 opinion as with any Mr. Airy may have formed ; what I say is, 
 that ifi\\Q two agree, the odds are, they are right. 
 
 At page 166 it is said that Mr. Airy "was unable to draw up a 
 memorial to Sir Robert Peel which he had himself proposed, even 
 though it related to an astronomical subject our Colonial obser- 
 vatories," on account of his labours in the Railway Gauge Com- 
 mission. This seems to insinuate a neglect of duty. Mem- 
 bers of the Board of Visitors know perfectly well, though the 
 readers of The Exposition of 1851 may not, that Mr. Airy, as 
 Astronomer Royal, is not charged with any observatory but 
 Greenwich ; and that in drawing up a memorial about Colonial 
 observatories for Sir Robert Peel's information, he was performing 
 a work of supererogation (which Mr. Babbage should style, if he 
 is consistent, "an injudicious diversion of his abilities from their 
 legitimate object") to be omitted or postponed according to his 
 pleasure. 
 
 The anomalous state of the Government observatories out of 
 England had frequently been talked over by Mr. Airy and 
 myself, and he was anxious to apply a remedy. f The simplest 
 way appeared to be, that he should take an opportunity of 
 mentioning the matter to Sir Robert Peel, then Premier, who was 
 
 * T do not accuse Mr. Babbage of inventing facts, like Sir James South or 
 other romancers, but I assert that he cannot comprehend a simple fact, or state 
 it, without adding his own wild surmises, as if they were equally certain, and 
 rested on the same foundation. I dare say he believes there was a conspiracy 
 against Sir James South, and against himself, and that I was the head of it; 
 but he cannot, and he does not, point out one particle of evidence to connect 
 any other person with me, or to show that I attempted to influence any other 
 person, beyond what I myself have freely stated. All is mere conjecture on 
 the most flimsy tissue of what seem to him probabilities. He specifies no 
 one except the Astronomer Royal, and the Astronomer Royal and I flatly con- 
 tradict him. 
 
 f There was no effective control, so that at Paramatta the new instruments 
 were never mounted. There was no encouragement, as our petty officials don't 
 much care for science, and know nothing about it. 1 have heard that the build- 
 ing of the Cape Observatory was delayed foi years, because Sir John Barrow had 
 put the plan into his desk, and forgotten, or at least neglected it. The chiefs are 
 easy to deal with, but you can't get at them: the underlings, as a rule, are, I 
 ought rather to say were, no go. 
 
62 
 
 easily accessible. This was done, and Sir Eobert desired to have 
 a written statement of suggestions for remedying the evils. Mr. 
 Airy accordingly drew up a memorial, but after some delay; 
 having been closely employed on the papers of the Railway Gauge 
 Commission, which was surely a more pressing national question. 
 
 Mr. Airy recommended that the directors of our foreign 
 observatories should correspond with, and report regularly to, a 
 small named committee (he was to be chairman), whose duty it 
 would be to insist on good work at each establishment, and to 
 bring the requests and wants of the directors to the effectual 
 knowledge of Government. Sir Robert Peel received Mr. Airy's 
 letter on the eve of quitting office, so he forwarded it to the 
 Admiralty, requesting their lordships to lay the matter before the 
 Board of Visitors. This was done ; but, unluckily, the clerk, 
 whose business it was to transmit the matter officially, suppressed 
 Sir Robert's letter, and suggested local boards, a measure which 
 would have been far more injurious than letting things alone.* 
 The Visitors put this meddling letter aside, and recommended 
 a small committee, such as the Astronomer Royal advised, and 
 under his presidency ; instead, however, of naming certain persons, 
 they proposed to appoint the members themselves out of their 
 own body. There was now this difficulty : Mr. Airy refused posi- 
 tively to take any share in any fresh body in which Sir James 
 South could be included, while it was admitted by all, that the 
 committee, without Mr. Airy, would be useless. A considerable 
 number of the Visitors were of opinion that we should apply for 
 fresh warrants, in which Sir James South's name should be 
 omitted, and some steps were taken to procure them ; but I think 
 the easy nature of Lord Northampton proved an obstacle. f It 
 was understood, I think, finally, that the Admiralty would, in 
 future, be guided mainly by the advice of the Astronomer Royal 
 as to the Cape and other Observatories, which was, perhaps, 
 the second best solution of the difficulty. 
 
 Mr. Airy's objections to Sir James South were, I presume, 
 principally on the following grounds. When Mr. Airy was pre- 
 paring Groombridge's Catalogue for publication, he applied to Sir 
 
 * Official gentlemen, when they are commissioned by their superiors to ask 
 scientific bodies for information, generally contrive to give a great deal of 
 unnecessary trouble by throwing out ill-advised suggestions, which are treated 
 with more ceremony than they deserve, from respect to their masters. Some 
 years ago, the Astronomical Society was consulted as to the propriety of keeping 
 up both the Observatories of the Cape and Paramatta ; and the clerk, to show 
 his knowledge, suggested fhat one must be unnecessary, as they were nearly in 
 the same latitude. I wanted to return a saucy answer, that there was another 
 important element, which had apparently escaped attention, viz. the longitude. 
 It gives trouble and costs time to refute civilly, but decidedly, such idle suggestions. 
 
 f Sir James has not attended a meeting of the Board of Visitors since his 
 reproof by the Duke of Sussex. He did, indeed, come to the visitation in 1853, 
 when he thought I was abroad ; and I believe intended to support Mr. Babbage 
 in his attack upon me in my absence. But when he saw that I was there to 
 defend myself, Sir James showed his discretion and retreated. 
 
63 
 
 James South, who had bought Groombridge's Circle, for leave to 
 examine it. The reply was studiously offensive ; and when Sir 
 James published it in the " Times" as he thought fit to do, a few 
 years afterwards, he added, that he had immediately forwarded it 
 to a military friend of high rank ;* in other words, that he had 
 attempted to provoke Mr. Airy into a duel ; for which he had no 
 grounds except that Mr. Airy had advised us in perfecting the 
 Great Equatoreal, and given a very decisive testimony in its 
 favour. 
 
 Upon another and later occasion, Sir James induced Sir Robert 
 Inglis to believe that the Astronomer Royal had treated Sirius 
 and Fomalhaut with culpable ignorance and neglect. How the 
 good-natured baronet, and the spiteful knight, fared under Mr. 
 Airy's scalpel, any one may see, who will refer to the Athenceum 
 Journal, No. 978, July 25, 1846. 
 
 At page 167 Mr. Babbage says, "I have now traced the con- 
 nexion of the Rev. R. Sheepshanks (who had avowed his deter- 
 mination 'to discredit me" 1 and also to ' attack me on another 
 subject at a future time') through his friend the Astronomer 
 Royal, with the Government." Mr. Babbage has done no such 
 thing. We are rather at issue about the precise words used by 
 me when we were alone together. I certainly said " I would show 
 him up ;" that is, I would expose his blunders about the great 
 equatoreal. If I alluded to any other sore point (which I don't 
 now recollect, but won't deny), it must have been to his discharge 
 of his duties as Lucasian Professor. I am certain, as I have said 
 elsewhere, that I never thought at that time about the Calculating 
 Machine, which might have been progressing prosperously for 
 aught I knew to the contrary. Mr. Airy will confirm me in my 
 assertion that I never tried to influence him against the Calcu- 
 lating Machine; and I don't think he can recollect any conversa- 
 tion between us on the subject (I can't), prior to his informing 
 me of the contents of the twelfth chapter of The Exposition of 
 1851. It would have been rather impertinent in me to suggest 
 my opinion of calculating machines to him if I had entertained 
 any, and I am sure I never did so. I repeat, that I did not know 
 Mr. Airy's opinion of the Calculating Machine before the con- 
 versation in which he informed me what Mr. Babbage had said 
 of us in his book. 
 
 What I have always felt since the acknowledged failure of 
 that unlucky undertaking, and what I have said doubtless to Mr. 
 Airy and other people, is, that Mr. Babbage must be considered as 
 under a cloud until he himself gives a full account of the reason 
 of the failure. I have said that Mr. Babbage owed this explana- 
 
 * I believe this was Sir Rufane Donkin, who would scarcely have allowed two 
 civilians to fight on such grounds. Sir James's usual referee was Captain 
 
 Beaufort, an officer so notoriously brave and so peaceable, that as remarked, 
 
 one might as well select a police magistrate for a friend. But Sir James is no 
 doubt growing wiser. When he had to deal with Captain Grover, he sought the 
 protection of the Queen's Bench, before it was wanted. 
 
64 
 
 tion, not merely to his own character, but to the country whose 
 money he has wasted, and to his friends who pressed his schemes 
 on the Government. I have felt this want of explanation, and I 
 think others have felt it too, a " lion in the path " when any ap- 
 plication for public money was suggested. I don't blame the 
 Government, who relied on the representations of the Royal 
 Society and of Mr. Babbage's friends ; I don't blame those friends 
 (though I am heartily glad I was not one), for they acted with 
 undoubted good faith, though perhaps they were a little carried 
 away by their personal attachment and the inventor's earnestness ; 
 I don't even blame Mr. Babbage himself, for the failure, he may 
 not be to blame if we knew all the circumstances (I need not say 
 that I have always scouted any charge of pecuniary dishonesty) ; 
 but I do blame him for his shuffling, indirect conduct, adducing as 
 evidence persons who could only learn their story from him, and 
 giving no sufficient information, on his own authority, of what 
 his machine was to do, and how it was to do it, and why it didn't 
 do it. I believe this feeling of mine is shared by most of Mr. 
 Babbage's friends who can form an opinion on the matter. 
 
 It is curious enough that the only occasion I can remember on 
 which I could have been supposed to influence " the powers that 
 be" against the Calculating Machine, occurred two or three years 
 before Mr. Babbage gave his evidence on the great Equatoreal, 
 which is the veritable causa belli. Not long after the passing of 
 the Reform-bill, I was invited to dinner by a nobleman who had 
 taken a very active part in the bill, and who was pleased to 
 express himself favourably as to the way in which I had executed 
 my share in the work. I was, I think (with the exception of 
 Sidney Smith), the only commoner present. During dinner, a 
 lady asked me, the full length of the table, whether the Calcu- 
 lating Machine would not be of great service in the computation 
 of the Nautical Almanac. My reply was, that I did not think it 
 would ; .. that its design was, I believed, to compute tables, by 
 which it was supposed the calculation of the Nautical Almanac 
 and of other similar works would be facilitated. My querist was a 
 countess, and there were, perhaps, three or four cabinet ministers 
 present. After this full confession, I have nothing to add on the 
 subject.* Mr. Babbage has traced nothing, for there was nothing 
 
 * I remember that one of Mr. Babbage's friends was displeased with my little 
 reply to his attack on the Astronomical Society and its President in the matter of 
 Neptune. I was told it would do mischief, though I did not learn in what way. 
 Surely Mr. Babbage has no prescription to write criminatory letters in the 
 " Times," without being answered. I did indeed suggest that he might employ 
 his time better in giving us some account of the Calculating Machine and its 
 failure, than in writing on matters which he did not understand ; but in this sug- 
 gestion I was really his best adviser. The chapter in Mr. Weld's History of the 
 Royal Society, and the criticisms in the Athenaeum, appeared subsequently to my 
 appeal ; and if they were in consequence of it, I did Mr. Babbage a service. Let 
 me hope that the stronger and more pointed requisition, which I now make, may 
 be proportionably effective, and that we may at least get an intelligible history of 
 this affair, if we get nothing else. 
 
65 
 
 to trace ; and I declare, on my honour, that his idea is a mere 
 delusion. 
 
 What Mr. Babbage says, at page 168, respecting Mr. Airy's 
 opinions about Calculating Machines, &c., does not concern me ; 
 it is purely hypothetical, for we have hitherto only conjectures 
 and reasonings to show that Mr. Airy was consulted, or gave any 
 opinion at all. Nor, if he did give an opinion, does it follow that 
 Mr. Babbage has any claim, as a matter of justice, to have a pri- 
 vileged communication published. Mr. Babbage's statements to 
 Government, proving " the practical utility of the Calculating 
 Machines, and the possibility of constructing them," are in no 
 authentic or public shape; and he must prove his own case, before 
 he calls on any supposed antagonist. A little lower down, Mr. 
 Babbage says, that after he had executed a small model, " he under- 
 took, at the wish of the Government, to construct for them an engine 
 on a much larger scale, which should print its results." I believe this 
 to be incorrect. The truth appears to me to be, that Mr. Babbage 
 applied to Government for pecuniary assistance, on the strength of 
 a recommendation from the Council of the Royal Society, and 
 obtained it, in consequence ofih&t recommendation. On referring 
 to page 256, it will be seen, that Mr. Babbage and the Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer had " contrary impressions " as to the purport of 
 their conversation ; but there is no ground for supposing that 
 there was any "wish" on the part of Government to engage Mr. 
 Babbage in the undertaking. Money was advanced to him " to 
 enable him to bring his invention to perfection in the manner 
 recommended" by the Council of the Royal Society. This is by 
 no means an uncommon course. Schemes are proposed to Govern- 
 ment, and, when reasonable, intelligible, and strongly recom- 
 mended, money is sometimes granted to carry them into effect ; but 
 my impression is, that in all such cases, without there is a specific 
 bargain, there is no obligation on the side of Government, though 
 there is one on the side of the projector whose whim is forwarded 
 at the national expense. There is surely a vast difference between 
 being engaged by any one to do something for his benefit, and at 
 his request ; and the setting yourself to work upon a pet scheme 
 of your own, at his cost, and on your own application. 
 
 Suppose an impetuous desire for a Calculating Machine had 
 fallen upon Mr. Robinson, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
 that he had pressed the commission on Mr. Babbage, as the only 
 person who could execute it. Suppose that, while Mr. Babbage 
 was so engaged, Mr. Robinson had interfered and meddled with 
 him, urged matters on, and postponed his other business to devote 
 his unceasing attention to the machine, watching it step by step, 
 until it had arrived at its growth. Let tis suppose still further, that 
 the machine, having been hurried out of Mr. Babbage's hands, was 
 let fall by strangers called in to set it up, and that, owing to this, 
 and other faults of haste or mistake, the mechanism did not act 
 with precision. To complete the climax, let us suppose that all 
 payment is now refused, (not one shilling having been advanced to 
 
 E 
 
66 
 
 Mr. Babbage or to the workmen paid by him,) that access is denied, 
 and that the offer to remedy the imperfections gratuitously, is re- 
 jected. If Mr. Babbage had suffered any such injustice, no one 
 would have exclaimed more loudly than I at such a mixture of 
 meanness and tyranny ; yet this is a precise statement of the treat- 
 ment which Troughton sustained from Sir James South, and which 
 Mr. Babbage did his best to defend. In Mr. Babbage's real case, 
 I conceive the Government was at liberty to break off whenever 
 it found the connexion onerous, upon paying the expenses incurred, 
 just as Sir James might have done ; though it would have been 
 more handsome to continue the work, so long as there was a reason- 
 able chance of success at a reasonable cost. 
 
 In 1834 the work came to a stand.* Mr. Babbage coolly says, 
 " Circumstances over which I had no control then caused the work 
 to be suspended." Now, these circumstances are precisely what 
 we wish to have made clear, and also that they did not fall within 
 Mr. Babbage's control. 
 
 There was a quarrel with his engineer, Mr. Clement, I know ; 
 but though I have heard causes alleged, I do not know where the 
 blame really lies. Clement objected to remove to Dorset Street, 
 where Mr. Babbage wished to transport him, he having already 
 established a business in Lambeth. I have heard that he was 
 not a good-tempered man, and that he was in very bad health ; 
 but I never heard anything positively unfavourable, except 
 the "curious anecdote" related at p. 257, which, if it be true, 
 proves something more than the "great perfection to which he 
 was in the habit of bringing machinery." This quarrel, however, 
 was a most unlucky one for Mr. Babbage, not merely on account 
 of the delay and loss thereby occasioned, but in depriving him of 
 the person on whose mechanical skill and contrivance he had 
 hitherto depended. It is to this quarrel I mainly attribute the 
 failure of the Difference Machine ;f and it is doubted by some com- 
 petent persons whether the machine could have been constructed 
 without Clement's aid. 
 
 And now the question between Mr. Babbage and the Govern- 
 ment assumed a new phase. During the dispute with Clement, 
 Mr. Babbage, unfortunately as I think, conceived the idea of a 
 new Calculating Machine, which he calls an Analytical Machine ; 
 and he was ill-judged enough to press the consideration of this 
 new machine upon the members of Government, who were already 
 sick of the old one, and who could have no notion about the merits 
 of either. For eight or ten years, ministers had been told of the 
 extraordinary powers and utility of the Calculating Machine, and 
 
 * Mr. Babbage's examination in the matter of the Great Equatoreal, from 
 which our quarrel is to be dated, was before the vacation of 1835 ; the cross- 
 examination was after the vacation, that is, a year after the stoppage of the 
 machine, so that I have the same defence as the lamb had against the wolf, if I 
 wanted it. 
 
 f As I did not know Mr. Clement even by sight, I suppose I am not sus- 
 pected of bringing about this squabble between two ill-natured men. 
 
67 
 
 they had responded liberally to repeated demands for money to 
 further its execution. They are then told by the projector himself 
 that it is doubtful whether this much-vaunted and expensive work 
 is worth finishing, for that he has now hit upon something every 
 way superior ; and that he wishes for their decision between the 
 two, the ignotum and the ignotius and for their directions how 
 he is to proceed.* This gaucherie is so inconceivable, that I hope 
 Mr. Babbage will publish his letter to the Duke of Wellington 
 in which these or similar views are stated. From that time for- 
 ward Mr. Babbage seems to have been unable to get right, or to 
 take a step to make matters clear; and yet, to ordinary under- 
 standings, his course was straight enough. 
 
 Having undertaken to make a definite machine, it was his 
 business to complete it with as little delay, and at as little cost, as 
 might be. Supposing that in the main he was rather to be pitied 
 than blamed for his quarrel with Clement, still he was bound to 
 remedy the loss, which had been caused by his carelessness or 
 ignorance, in the best way he could. I do not understand that 
 any steps were taken in this direction, and the excuse is not suf- 
 ficient. It is nonsense to talk of consulting a prime minister about 
 the kind of Calculating Machine that he wants. He wants no Cal- 
 culating Machine at all ; and it is altering the whole state of the 
 question to suppose that he does, or that he is to take any respon- 
 sible step, or to decide anything about it on his own " reading 
 in human nature." If Mr. Babbage really felt any scruple about 
 going on with the Difference Machine, he should have proceeded 
 as he did originally ; he should have submitted his views to persons 
 who could have understood them, and then made a definite pro- 
 posal to the Government backed by their recommendation. An ass 
 between two bundles of hay would be far less divided in mind than 
 a premier between two machines, one not made, the other not 
 begun, and neither understood. 
 
 In 1838 Mr. Babbage asked " whether the Government re- 
 quired him to superintend the completion of the Difference Engine," 
 and to this application and others of the same nature he seems 
 to have got no answer till 1842, when he was told that the design 
 was abandoned, and the machine, so far as it was constructed, 
 placed at his disposal.f Whether this decision was a wise one or 
 not, Mr. Babbage gives us no means of judging. We have no 
 estimates of the probable expense of completion. It seems to me 
 
 * I believe Mr. Babbage took the opportunity of notifying these opinions to the 
 Duke of Wellington when he was sole minister, and holding a score of portfolios 
 until Sir Robert Peel returned from Italy. So far as I remember Mr. Babbage's 
 account (we were then on amicable terms and dining near each other in Trinity 
 College), the letter to the Duke was of considerable length, and made no definite 
 proposal, but suggested his willingness to construct the new machine at their 
 request, &c. &c. 
 
 f This was in 1842, in Sir Robert Peel's administration, when Mr. Goulburn 
 was Chancellor of the Exchequer ; so that I cannot have brought my supposed 
 influence with the Whigs to bear on Mr. Babbage. I fancy that I have as much 
 influence with one party as the other, that is to say, just nothing. 
 
68 
 
 that Mr. Babbage ought to have offered to complete the Difference 
 Machine, since its construction was originally urged by himself, 
 and not have contented himself with merely asking whether he 
 was required to superintend it. This is a departure from the 
 original terms ; for there is no evidence that he was ever required 
 to commence the machine at all. He was allowed to do so at the 
 public expense, and it was his duty to complete his work, unless 
 Government refused his application for the necessary supplies. 
 After the reply of 1842, both parties are undoubtedly free ; but 
 the previous circumstances require a continuous history, with 
 documents in full. 
 
 Those who know how self-opinionated and wrong-headed Mr. 
 Babbage is, and always has been, will have no difficulty in con- 
 ceiving that his applications to Government must have been 
 troublesome;* and that as his objects were unintelligible, and 
 his claims on their time and attention very importunate, he must 
 have been considered a bore by both ministers and secretaries. 
 Add to this, that he came frequently for money, which is an 
 abomination in all public offices, and that the " friction" in such 
 transactions, if there is the least departure from routine, is 
 immense; and there will be no need of evoking me or my "party," 
 or any "intrigues" whatever, to account for the difficulties which 
 Mr. Babbage met with connected with the Calculating Machine. 
 
 At page 169, we are told " that there are several offices in 
 the appointment of Government for which Mr. Babbage is qua- 
 lified, and to which, under the circumstances, he had some claim ;" 
 that " every application was unsuccessful, and that whatever may 
 have been the reasons, the conduct of Government has been exactly 
 that which might have been expected, had they been the allies or 
 the dupes of the party which thought it necessary, from enmity to 
 Sir James South, to ' discredit' the author of the Analytical 
 Engine." To the insinuation in the latter part of the above 
 quotation I have already replied at more length than I fear will 
 find patient readers. I have already challenged Mr. Babbage to 
 name the members of this "party" which, I say, has no existence; 
 and, I may remark, that as ministers have varied, it is odd that all 
 should have been allies or dupes of the same person. I never even 
 heard, till I read Mr. Babbage's book, that he had applied for any 
 Government office. But I have no scruple in saying that I don't 
 know any Government office or any other office for which he is fit, 
 certainly none which requires sense and good temper. If, indeed, 
 we had a quarrel to establish anywhere, I could recommend 
 MM. Babbage and South as very proper representatives of the 
 nation, and men perfectly sure to get us into a difficulty at the 
 shortest notice. I don't myself appreciate very highly sacrifices 
 
 * Of my own knowledge I can say nothing more than what I have already 
 mentioned as coming from Lieutenant Drummond ; but if he himself a man of 
 science, a friend of Mr. Babbage, and an expounder of the machine was 
 annoyed) what must have been the case with ordinary sees, and subs. ? 
 
69 
 
 which were never asked for, and which have produced nothing ; 
 but if others do, pray let these sacrifices be compensated in money, 
 and not by filling an office with an unfit person. 
 
 In the two following pages, which conclude the chapter, Mr. 
 Babbage waxes very indignant at the calumny, that " he had 
 received a large pecuniary reward for his services." A calumny 
 it is, as all well-informed people know, and one which is quite 
 inconsistent with Mr. Babbage's character. But though I am, and 
 always have been, convinced of his purity in money matters, I think 
 that the mystery in which the history of the Calculating Machine 
 has been studiously enveloped, has been the main cause of the pro- 
 pagation of the falsehood; and that persons who take their views of 
 men of science from Mr. Babbage's sketches, are hardly to be 
 blamed, if they think all evil of every member of the race. I 
 believe Mr. Babbage means to speak the truth ; but I am sure 
 that almost every other sentence in his twelfth chapter contains 
 a falsehood in fact, or in deduction ; this, I think, I have shown 
 to the satisfaction of any competent person who thinks it worth 
 while to attend to what I have said. 
 
 Having disposed of the charges made against me in the lump 
 in Chapter XII., I may be allowed to notice a few passages in the 
 Preface, as being more likely to be read than the rest of the 
 volume, and not irrelevant to the matters in hand. 
 
 The Great Exhibition was not intended for " the world's great 
 bazaar ; " and the greater number of the English exhibitors would 
 have refused, I believe, to affix prices.* The basis of competition 
 could not be adopted even if it had been desirable. 
 
 The praise of the United States, which is to be found in the 
 sixth and seventh pages, is too fulsome and too foolish to pass with 
 any well-educated American. If our Transatlantic brethren do not 
 partake of our prejudices they have their own, which still more 
 disqualify their judgment. In most cases, an intelligent native 
 must be a better and safer authority than an equally intelligent 
 foreigner ; and I think that an Englishman who reads an Ame- 
 rican's remarks on England (or versa vice) seldom has any doubt 
 on the matter. 
 
 Mr. Babbage's phrase of " Proud of the only ancestry which is 
 not contemptible," which he applies to the American, is, first of all, 
 not true; for good ancestry is not contemptible, nor ever was, nor 
 ever will be : neither is it applicable. Many of the most intel- 
 lectual and most highly-educated gentlemen of America look with 
 no small satisfaction to their lineage derived from the purest blood 
 of England. 
 
 * I agree with Mr. Babbage in wishing to have everything marked with its 
 price, and object exceedingly to the trouble one gives and receives in asking 
 questions. The " principle of least action" should govern our conduct in these 
 and similar matters. But the feelings of respectable traders run counter, and 
 I suppose those of the majority of customers ; and it is admitted that each man 
 is the best judge of his own wants and of his own interests so we, the smaller 
 party, must be satisfied. 
 
70 
 
 That Americans, because they know us less intimately, can, 
 " as it were, anticipate for us the decision of posterity upon the 
 reputation of those English writers who have never visited her 
 shores," is stark nonsense. That kind of education which is re- 
 quired to form a correct judgment in literary or scientific matters 
 is not more extensive or wider spread in America than England. 
 When I admit that men equally well educated in each country are 
 almost as competent to decide on the merits of their rivals as on 
 those of their countrymen, I fancy I am much nearer the mark 
 than Mr. Babbage ; and that sensible Americans claim no more. 
 
 Seeing what the objects of Mr. Babbage's cravings are titles, 
 pensions, stars, red ribbons, institutes I marvel at this burst of 
 enthusiasm for the great Republic, which has none of these things. 
 Is there any hope that some of those dollars, which seem to dis- 
 tress the States by their accumulation, may be diverted to the 
 construction of an Analytical Machine ? or must we say of Mr. 
 Babbage as Horace said of certain grumblers in his time ? 
 
 " Nostra sed impugnat, nos nostraque lividus odit. 
 
 He does not love America, but he is spiteful towards England, 
 just as he is towards the Royal Society ; and shows it by praising 
 a foreign country and a foreign institution with little discretion. 
 
 Mr. Babbage makes this query at page viii. " Who else could 
 have fully known who else would have fully told their history ? " 
 viz. of his Calculating Machines. I know that he has not told us 
 anything about the matter in this book I mean anything expla- 
 natory or satisfactory, There are, indeed, cock-and-bull stories 
 about imaginary persecutions, &c., the main part of which I know 
 to be untrue. The only history revealed in his book is by other 
 persons, and had been published previously elsewhere. 
 
 Mr. Babbage goes on to say, " The facts stated in the follow- 
 ing pages are not drawn from any violation of the confidence of 
 private society. Those whose names are mentioned are paid by 
 the nation, and therefore responsible to their employers. Against 
 them I have no personal feeling ; their official acts are necessarily 
 mentioned as parts of the system to which they belong." 
 
 That Mr. Babbage has been personal in his remarks, is evident 
 enough, and I don't object ; though I am one of the " illustrations." 
 His freedom has unlocked my tongue, and justified my personality, 
 which I feel to be a great comfort. What / complain of is, his 
 vagueness and impersonality, talking continually of a " party," 
 but naming no one. I affirm that there is no " party," and never 
 was any " party ; " and I ask for names, that I may show the 
 equal ignorance of my supposed co-mates and fellows in con- 
 spiracy.* 
 
 In this very misty writer one is never quite certain what he 
 means, and I should be loath to defend myself where I am not 
 attacked ; but I think the first sentence must relate to the use 
 
 -* Unless Mr. Babbage takes a leaf out of the book of his shuffling friend 
 Sir James, and quotes dead men, I shall have no difficulty. 
 
71 
 
 made by the author of my private conversations. I assure him I 
 acquit him of all blame on this score. If he had confined himself 
 to a simple narration of what really passed, and had not, by omit- 
 ting the essential parts and interweaving his own surmises with the 
 rest, given a totally false complexion to the whole, I should have 
 had nothing to object to. I must, however, point out to him one 
 mistake. He seems to think that, because he introduced an ac- 
 count of this conversation into a trial, that therefore it has justly 
 become public property. The question is, whether he had a right 
 to bring it forward on the trial, which, if it had any bearing, I 
 should not deny. I assert that it had not ; even the garbled portion 
 adduced by Mr. Babbage made no impression on the arbitrator. 
 What he thought of the complainant's nerve and sense I can only 
 conjecture. To me they seemed on a par with his mechanics. 
 
 As my " name is mentioned," I suppose I am included among 
 those " paid by the nation." Will Mr. Babbage mention a single 
 instance in which I have ever received a half-penny for my trifling 
 services either from the nation or from any one else ? My work 
 has always been gratuitous, and in almost every instance a cause 
 of extra expense. Will MM. Babbage and South pay the bills, 
 if I produce them, of costs out of pocket upon divers occasions, 
 the pendulum experiments in Cornwall, the determination of the 
 longitudes of Valentia, &c., the publication of the Monthly Notices of 
 the Royal Astronomical Society, the Boundary Commission, and the 
 Standard Measure Commission,* or the Board of Greenwich Visitors. 
 
 Mr. Babbage's rule, therefore, if it were true in its most' ex- 
 tended sense, does not apply to me.f 
 
 * I know that this item has added considerably to my expenses for the last 
 eight years; but it is voluntary, and I am quite satisfied, though I shall not" 
 be sorry when I am released from it. Connected with the Board I will give an 
 instance of Mr. Babbage's delicacy, and how carefully he abstains from meddling 
 with matters which do not concern him. As many of the Visitors reside at a 
 distance, it was considered reasonable that a small allowance should be made to 
 non-residents for their expenses. Though I am in the non-resident list, I have 
 always declined to accept anything, because it is against my rule, and because, in 
 fact, the expense is not extra, half my time being necessarily spent in London 
 upon the Standard Commission, Mr. Babbage on one occasion had the singular 
 bad taste to remark upon my refusal, as if I thereby implied some censure upon 
 my colleagues. What he might imply by such conduct, is, I trust, no rule by 
 which I am to be judged. 
 
 f And yet I can no more claim to be irresponsible than Mr. Babbage himself. 
 We have both spent public money, and both are bound to give a satisfactory ac- 
 count to the Government, and to intelligent people who want to learn the 
 truth. I have undertaken, for instance, to restore the standard of length, and to 
 prepare a number of accurate copies. The work has been far longer in hand 
 than I like, and has been more expensive than T expected. My justification is, 
 that I have done my best, and that the delay has not been without its advantages. 
 Messrs. Troughton and Simms' bills are paid by the Treasury on the authority 
 of the Astronomer Royal, who requires me to certify my belief that they are cor- 
 rect and reasonable. I have no means of forming a very accurate judgment, but 
 from the experience of thirty years, I have the same confidence in Mr. Simms' 
 integrity that I have in Mr. Airy's, and that I believe both have in mine. The 
 time for giving an account of my operations is not yet come; when it does, I will 
 tell my tale out of face, and not in Mr. Babbage's fashion. 
 
72 
 
 Another person named, and therefore included in Mr. Bab- 
 bage's category, is the Astronomer Royal. Let me first set him 
 right as to his principle, which, when correctly enunciated, is 
 this, Every one paid by the nation to discharge certain duties is 
 responsible to the nation for the satisfactory execution of those 
 duties. But, except in a figurative language, the nation acts, and 
 is understood to act, by its appointed ministers, and it is only in 
 their default that indifferent persons can properly interfere, who, 
 in so doing, become themselves responsible for their competence 
 and for the truth and propriety of their judgments. The Astro- 
 nomer Royal is responsible in his office to the Government acting 
 for the nation. The Government has delegated its office of inspec- 
 tion to the Board of Visitors, who thus are the proper and primary 
 inquisitors of the Royal Observatory, and who are in fault if the 
 establishment is ill-conducted. In matters which don't relate to 
 the Royal Observatory, the Astronomer Royal is as little respon- 
 sible to the nation as is any one else.* 
 
 Now Mr. Babbage has no complaint to make against the mode 
 in which the Royal Observatory is carried on,f if he had, the 
 Board of Visitors should be first, and exclusively, appealed to. 
 His objections are, that, besides discharging his public and paid 
 
 * I dare say this limitation of the rights of interference will appear strange to 
 some of my readers, but a little consideration will show that the irregular med- 
 dling which the author's rule would authorise, is incompatible with order or dis- 
 cipline, or any genuine official responsibility. That every official person in the 
 country is to be subjected to the criticism of any spiteful blockhead, anonymous 
 or notorious, for his non-official acts, is not for the national advantage or the 
 national honour, neither is it in harmony with our law or institutions ; it is merely 
 a bad custom. The great bulk of the people has no time to hear two sides of 
 a question, and is not, and never will be, sufficiently educated to estimate the 
 probable truth of a one-sided statement. Joe Smith, and Mr. Urquhart, and the 
 Editor of the Morning Advertiser, have all found believers, though their stories 
 are rather less credible, and not more consistent, than Falstaff's narrative of the 
 " knaves in buckram." When this evil has become a little greater (that is to 
 say, unbearable), I trust plain men will discover that to lie with impunity is not 
 a creditable privilege, nor one necessary for Englishmen, be they gentle or simple ; 
 and that the man who defames another is bound to show the truth or high pro- 
 bability of his accusation, even though the person assailed be a prince or a minister. 
 In the case of private persons, a preliminary issue would be simple enough, viz., 
 has the public any lawful interest in the matter alleged ? A carefully drawn law 
 of libel, administered by men of sense, would be of infinite service, and a safe- 
 guard of the liberty and respectability of the press, which suffers greatly in general 
 consideration on account of its Potts, and Slurks, and Divers. 
 
 f Every year since Mr. Airy's appointment, the Board of Visitors has had 
 reason to admire the efficiency of the Greenwich establishment, and Mr. Babbage 
 has not, I believe, dissented from the general sentiment, though I don't suppose 
 his approbation has been quite so hearty as that of the rest of us. But by his 
 remark at p. 167 he has misled, I have no doubt, several ignorant persons, and 
 among others the Editor of the Mechanics' Magazine. This person, improving 
 on Mr. Babbage's hint, has distinctly charged the Astronomer Royal with neglect 
 of duty, and contrasted him unfavourably with his predecessors. According to 
 this blind leader of the blind, the official duties of Mr. Main are clerical rather 
 than astronomical he is the chaplain, not the first assistant, of the Astrono- 
 mer Royal. Verily if the schoolmaster be abroad, he should be brought into close 
 and immediate contact with this " father of asses ;" and yet I dare say there are 
 still greater simpletons who believe him. 
 
73 
 
 duty, Mr. Airy has performed other unpaid services, public and 
 private. With these Mr. Babbage has no concern. 1 certainly 
 am not going to take upon myself the task of defending the Astro- 
 nomer Royal ; he pays no heed to his calumniators, and can do so 
 safely : I want to show that the conduct of my adversary is all of 
 a piece, that he mars everything he meddles with, and is not to 
 be regarded as of the least weight or authority. 
 
 As to Mr. Babbage's complaints of injury and injustice I do 
 not understand on what they are founded. He broke down, for 
 some cause or other, in the construction of a Calculating Machine, 
 but the expenses were defrayed by the country without a lawsuit. 
 He has since invented another, and he says a better, machine ; 
 but after one signal failure, he could scarcely expect to be treated 
 a second time with blind confidence, and yet he has taken no suffi- 
 cient steps to convince us of the utility or feasibility of his pro- 
 posals. Upon this new machine he has, he says, expended 20,000/., 
 although I believe not a bit of it has been executed. I am heartily 
 sorry, and wish he had been more prudent; but I must remark 
 that he had no encouragement, but the contrary, to incur such an 
 outlay, or any outlay at all.* 
 
 I doubt whether The Exposition of 1851 will find many 
 interpreters " who will know that its author has abstained, or 
 who will see that he possesses the power, though not the dis- 
 position, to avenge injury." It seems to me that he has done his 
 bitter best, to attack persons who have done him no injury at all, 
 though they may have given him considerable offence. I think that 
 Mr. Babbage wants logic, discernment, and a power of compre- 
 hending or stating facts ; and that, as an adversary, he is about 
 as much to be feared as Sir James South, or the editor of the 
 Mechanics' Magazine, with whom he has had the folly to identify 
 himself. The only plausible solution I can suggest for this volun- 
 tary degradation is Miss Flite's " he is a little M you 
 
 know." 
 
 I have already attempted to point out to Mr. Babbage reasons 
 which may have induced various ministries to treat him with 
 reserve, and to explain to him that his hypothesis of secret enemies, 
 intrigues, &c., is no more necessary to account for that reserve, 
 than Tenterden Steeple is wanted to explain the existence of the 
 Goodwin Sands. 
 
 Perhaps this may be made more clear, if I state why, in my 
 opinion, the Astronomer Royal " has been uniformly supported by 
 the confidence of the Government" 
 
 First of all, Mr. Airy had established the highest possible 
 character in his college and in his university (the most honest, 
 
 * As a political economist, I object to paying for unprofitable speculations 
 merely because they have cost so much to the projectors. " Every man must 
 judge of Ms own wants and of Ms own interests." But as this is an example 
 which is not likely to be followed, one should not be inclined to press the rule 
 too strictly. / shall not make an outcry if a ministry should take a favourable 
 view of Mr. Babbage's case. 
 
74 
 
 independent, and intelligent bodies I am acquainted with) before 
 he came into contact with the Government at all. He had been 
 a distinguished senior wrangler, and then fellow and lecturer in 
 Trinity College. The Lucasian Professorship, which had been 
 almost a sinecure since the days of Waring, fell vacant, and he 
 accepted it, though with a considerable loss of emolument. On 
 the excellence, the originality, and the scientific and practical 
 value of his lectures, and on their permanent effect upon the studies 
 of the University, I shall say nothing to gentlemen, most of whom 
 are far better qualified to judge than I, though I attended and 
 profited by them.* 
 
 After the death of Professor Woodhouse, Mr. Airy succeeded 
 as Plumian Professor; and under his direction the Cambridge 
 Observatory became the acknowledged model of all English 
 Observatories. At the same time, he continued his lectures and 
 examinations, with small help from Mr. Babbage, who was the 
 new Lucasian. When, therefore, Mr. Pond's resignation was 
 agitated, there was no thought of any other successor ; and the 
 offer of Greenwich was made by Lord Melbourne spontaneously. 
 At first, I think there was a little disposition in some of the 
 lower officials to be supercilious, f but this soon ceased ; and the 
 highest authorities learned to respect the resolute but composed 
 bearing of the Astronomer Royal, and to admire his simple and 
 straightforward manner of acting. 
 
 When Mr. Airy wants to carry anything into effect by 
 Government assistance, he states, clearly and briefly, why he 
 wants it ; what advantages he expects from it ; and what is the 
 probable expense : he also engages to direct and superintend the 
 execution, making himself personally responsible, and giving his 
 labour gratis. When he has obtained permission (which is very 
 seldom refused), he arranges everything with extraordinary 
 promptitude and foresight, conquers his difficulties by storm, and 
 presents his results and his accounts in perfect order, before men 
 like Mr. Babbage or myself, would have made up our minds about 
 the preliminaries. Now men in office naturally like persons of this 
 stamp. There is no trouble, no responsibility, no delay, no inquiries 
 in the House ; the matter is done, paid for. and published, before 
 the seekers of a grievance can find an opportunity to be heard. 
 This mode of proceeding is better relished by busy statesmen, than 
 recommendations from influential noblemen or fashionable ladies. 
 
 In pages xi. and xii., is some writing rather in the manner of 
 Charles Phillips's early orations, the exact meaning of which I 
 cannot divine. I think the first page must be an eulogium on 
 
 * There is a curious remnant still left of the impression made by Mr. Airy 
 on the University. The name of Professor sticks to him, though it has long been 
 inappropriate, and merged in the superior title of Astronomer Royal.' 
 
 f* In the days of MM. Croker and Barrow the Admiralty manners were any- 
 thing but gracious, and the scrubs copied their chiefs, as is the nature of scrubs. 
 " But we have changed all that;" there has been a manifest advance in intelli- 
 gence and civility since the good old times. 
 
* 75 
 
 Prince Albert, in connexion with the Great Exhibition. But I 
 do not believe that in his case there were any " deeply-rooted 
 prejudices of the upper classes to overcome," or " the still more 
 formidable, because latent impediments, of party* to be removed." 
 The rank and personal merits of Prince Albert, and the love and 
 duty every one bears to the Queen, really left very little difficulty 
 of this kind in his way. The conception of the main idea, and 
 the persevering activity with which it was carried into effect, 
 are worthy of all praise, and have, so far as I know, re- 
 ceived it. 
 
 The next paragraphs must, I think, allude to Mr. Babbage 
 himself, for I cannot anyhow make them construe with the Prince; 
 nor, in fact, with anything in the world except the author's 
 notion of himself. 
 
 Whether Mr. Babbage has learned to " achromatize his own 
 intellectual vision," and "rectify its colour blindness" or not, may 
 be left to the impartial judgment of those who can appreciate the 
 specimens he has given of his unclouded penetration. He cer- 
 tainly sees many things which no one else can see ; but whether 
 this faculty is what he imagines it to be, or one which makes 
 him " compact with the lover and poet," I leave to the reader's 
 guess. 
 
 Considering the novelty of the Great Exhibition of 1851, and 
 the short time allowed for arrangements, far fewer errors were 
 committed than could have been expected. 
 
 In the wonderful structure, which will immortalize its de- 
 signers and constructors, there was originally a small oversight ; 
 but this admitted of an easy remedy. f 
 
 Mr. Babbage's objections arise from his forming a wrong notion 
 of the advantages and peculiarities of the Great Exhibition, and 
 from confounding this extraordinary convention of all nations 
 with the annual exhibitions so prevalent on the Continent. I 
 doubted all along, and I doubt still, the policy of the system of 
 profuse medal-granting. It was impossible that the awards should 
 be satisfactory; and, in one or two instances, the blundering was 
 
 * " Still on my daughter." 
 
 Mr. Babbage finds "party" everywhere, and the word serves him for an 
 argument or an explanation on all occasions. Philosophers of a certain class use 
 or abuse electricity in the same way to explain the phenomena they do not 
 understand. 
 
 f The building was abundantly strong, almost superfluously so, in every 
 respect but one. The provision against side-pressure from high winds was not 
 satisfactory. A few iron rods, properly disposed, remedied this defect. It is a 
 curious part of the true history of this new English style (it would be more just 
 to call it Paxton's style) that the gentlemen who pointed out this inadvertence 
 were treated as enemies of the great undertaking ; and their cautions, which were 
 attended to by the builders, were scorned as idle prophecies by self-constituted 
 patrons. In the new Crystal Palace at Sydenham, which far surpasses the 
 original building, the braces or Xs to resist lateral strain are introduced through- 
 out, and in the greatest profusion. This practical admission of the earlier omis- 
 sion is quite satisfactory to those who can observe and think. 
 
76 
 
 extreme.* The juries expended a great deal of valuable time, 
 and wasted a good deal of temper unnecessarily. One or two 
 competent reporters in each department were all that was re- 
 quired. 
 
 Mr. Babbage has dwelt elsewhere at tiresome length upon the 
 encouragement of science and the rewards of men of science ; but 
 the only clear conclusion which I can arrive at is, his opinion that 
 he ought to have a large pension or a valuable place ; some here- 
 ditary title, baronetcy or peerage ; and, above all, the red ribbon 
 of the Bath.f 
 
 Mr. Babbage has no doubt as to the reasonableness of these 
 claims ; and if they were granted, I fancy his " views of the 
 industry, the science, and the government of England," would 
 " suffer a court-change." Perhaps the number of men of science 
 who must, in justice, be previously pensioned, ennobled, and 
 decorated, has not occurred to him. Perhaps Mr. Babbage will 
 give us a specific account of the services and merits for which 
 the rewards he claims are only a fair equivalent. Is it quite 
 clear that he would find this task a very easy one, or that 
 competent and independent judges would agree with his esti- 
 mate ? 
 
 Upon the general question, whether science is sufficiently 
 encouraged and rewarded in England, my feelings would lead me 
 to say no; but it is much easier to say this than to suggest a 
 remedy. Up to a certain point, and for certain subjects, our sys- 
 tem of grammar-schools, colleges, and universities, is only faulty 
 in details, and admits of easy, gradual, and indefinite improve- 
 
 * It is desirable to place one instance upon record ; I have heard of others, 
 though none, I believe, so flagrant. 
 
 When my friend Mr. Simms was requested to exhibit, he declined. His great 
 instruments were in their observatories (these are only made to. order) ; his 
 mechanically-dividing machine could not be spared ; and he had as many orders 
 on his hands as he could execute. I believe Mr. Dollond declined to exhibit for 
 the same or similar reasons. At almost the last hour, however, he got together 
 such specimens of his skill as he could lay hands on, and sent them, as a mark 
 of devotion to the Queen, and of respect to the Prince Consort. He gave notice 
 at the same time that he was not competing for any prize. This notice was not 
 regarded, and the jury awarded him a gold medal ; the collection being con- 
 sidered, I believe, about the best of its kind. From some cause, which has never 
 been explained, the Committee of Chairmen, who knew nothing of the merits, 
 overruled this decision of the jury who did, and a second-class medal was sent to 
 him, although he declined the honour altogether. The absurdity of allowing the 
 ignorant body to overrule hastily the deliberate judgment of the better instructed, 
 is patent enough. The Chairmen ought to have interfered only when the skilled 
 tribunal was undecided, or for some very special cause. Oddly enough, there 
 was not one member of this body who knew anything of the subject, for the 
 Chairman of the special Jury was attending a meeting at Exeter Hall. 
 
 f The Order of the Bath was one of Sir Humphry Davy's objects of desire ; 
 and though one rather laughs at such a weakness in so great a man, it was surely 
 ill done of the ministry to refuse it. Davy was a Baronet and President of the 
 Royal Society ; and as he asked for it, he ought not to have been denied an 
 honour which his predecessor, Sir Joseph Banks, had received. 
 
77 
 
 ment. But there is no subsequent career ; and our powerful geo- 
 meters and splendid classics look naturally for some mode of living 
 which the professions alone offer. A few men, who feel their call 
 strongly, and who will follow the bent of their own talents, satis- 
 fied " to wear a whole coat or a ragged one according as the world 
 will buy or neglect their works," are produced occasionally, and 
 upon these England chiefly depends for her exact science.* Some- 
 thing might be done by increasing the stipends of the professors 
 in all our Universities, and adding somewhat to their numbers. 
 In the larger towns of the empire, Chairs might be established ; 
 and pensions might be granted more freely, and on a more liberal 
 scale than they now are. But there is no security, nor even a 
 very high probability, that, with the best intentions, a constitu- 
 tional government like ours could effect these objects. The people 
 in general, and their leaders the public press, are very imperfectly 
 acquainted with science or with the merits of scientific men ; and a 
 minister cannot be expected to be infallible, if he had time to make 
 inquiries, which he has not. j 
 
 As to ribbons, and other merely honorary distinctions, if they 
 were always judiciously bestowed, they would do some good, and 
 be useful in stimulating amateurs in certain departments. But 
 you must give something more solid if you intend to direct the 
 full energies of a highly-educated man to severe studies. The 
 provision need not, perhaps, be large, as it will generally be in 
 aid of other means of living. The real difficulty lies in securing 
 a proper distribution. Public opinion, as it is called, is a mise- 
 rably insufficient guide. A few pensions might be placed at the 
 disposal of the Royal Society ; yet they might give rise to cliques 
 and cabals, from which real science in England is at present 
 almost free. But the practical problem is not a simple one; and I 
 cannot help remarking, that those who are loudest in reproaching 
 the nation with its neglect of science are not precisely men of the 
 
 * One of our best mathematicians, Sir John Lubbock, and one of our most 
 learned scholars, Mr. Grote, are found, where one would scarcely look for them, 
 among the leading bankers of London. 
 
 f Sir Robert Peel is assuredly a favourable specimen of an English statesman, 
 so far as being interested in science and anxious to promote it ; yet one of his 
 attempts in this line has been so unsuccessful as to compromise him seriously. 
 He was induced to grant an allowance of 300Z. a-year to Sir James South in aid 
 of his observatory, a grant which, in twenty-four years, has produced nothing. 
 Though I have heard something of the " party" which misled Sir Robert, I 
 cannot point exactly to the individuals. I believe, indeed, they meant very well ; 
 but, as is often the case, were profoundly ignorant of what an observatory is and 
 ought to be. Sir James South was never worth more than 100/. a-year as an 
 assistant in an observatory; and though he might have been made useful as a 
 noter of phenomena, could scarcely have been otherwise usefully employed. 
 The same money, if assigned to the Observatories of Cambridge or Oxford, would 
 have produced twice as much as it could have done in his, unless he had known how- 
 to use it properly. In the meantime, Smyth,*and Dawes, and Lassell, and others 
 whom I could mention, have been passed over ; this is unjust, after the grant 
 to Sir James. I own very gladly, that in his later pensions Sir Robert showed 
 discrimination, and that other ministers have been equally judicious ; but without 
 the greatest caution, and some good luck, they are always liable to be taken in. 
 
78 
 
 highest scientific rank, neither would they be the safest counsel- 
 lors.* 
 
 While I assert most positively, that I am innocent of conspir- 
 ing against either Sir James South or Mr. Babbage, and that I 
 am certain no such conspiracy ever existed, except in their own 
 imaginations, I do not mean to say that I never spoke, or spoke 
 unfavourably, of them. I have already narrated, and without pal- 
 liation, my behaviour to Sir James and the causes. I will be 
 equally candid towards Mr. Babbage. 
 
 I have always expressed my dislike and contempt for his shal- 
 low and ill-natured libel, entitled the Decline of Science; and 
 with regard to some of his other productions (always keeping 
 clear of analysis), have never scrupled to say that I thought little 
 of them. 
 
 I have always spoken strongly in condemnation of his be- 
 haviour as Lucasian Professor. I believe the appointment was 
 obtained for him, in his absence, on the understanding that he 
 would discharge the duties. I would not try Professor Babbage's 
 doings by those of Professor Airy and Professor Stokes, that 
 would be unfair ; but what did he do ? He examined a few times 
 in eleven years ; but I believe he did not print his questions. He 
 said this was very well for Airy, but did not suit him. Now we 
 all know that a good man directs his reading by the questions 
 which have been set in previous examinations, and that in this 
 way, among others, Mr. Airy forced a reasonable amount of physics 
 into the Cambridge studies. 
 
 Mr. Babbage never lectured at all, though he once proposed to 
 lecture, and I believe I helped to stop him. He gravely proposed 
 to lecture immediately after the Senate House examination, when 
 there is no one in the University ; and the bill of fare was to be 
 composed of what he had written (about the Economy of Manu- 
 factures, I believe,) for the Encyclopedia Metropolitana. This he 
 was to read from the slip. I pointed out to him that it must be 
 a mere Walls' lecture at that season; though I was not candid 
 enough to add, that such lectures would not draw in the Uni- 
 versity, where no man would go to hear read, and perhaps badly 
 read, what he can read himself in good print in a few weeks. I 
 think, too, the subject did not belong to his Professorship. The 
 Lucasian Professorship is very poorly paid, not better than the 
 Secretaryship of the Royal Society, and so hampered by statute, 
 that we can only get a good professor by chance ; but I do not 
 see what excuse this is for Mr. Babbage. I do not think he 
 would have been appointed, except in the belief that he meant to 
 perform some duties; for at that time Mr. Babbage's general repu- 
 tation in the University was not high. He had taken no honours, 
 
 * Many, many years ago Sir John Herschel made a disparaging remark on 
 English science, which has been repeated usque ad nauseam since. Possibly the 
 remark was a hasty one, or the reflexion of the peevishness of other persons ; 
 it was not acquiesced in, I know, by the most competent persons. This was 
 twenty-five years ago ; and if true then, not true now. 
 
79 
 
 had not been a fellow of his college, and, except in the opinion of 
 his personal friends, was in no great esteem. I know there was 
 general dissatisfaction as 'to his conduct ; and that the severity 
 of his requirements from others was thought to contrast very 
 unfavourably with his own performances. 
 
 I have often spoken very freely of Mr. Babbage's uselessness 
 and hindrance as a member of a Committee ; the reason is, I fancy, 
 that while he is striving to be original, and will talk about what 
 he does not understand, he only succeeds in being odd, or what he 
 himself very property calls " crotchety." 
 
 I have always condemned Mr. Babbage's conduct in not 
 giving a satisfactory account of " the Calculating Machine," and 
 the reasons of its failure, but without pretending to judge of the 
 machine itself, about which I never felt any interest.* 
 
 I have always expressed my dislike for Mr. Babbage's quarrel- 
 some and spiteful temper, his readiness to take offence, his implac- 
 able hatred, and his inordinate vanity which completely blinds 
 him as to the consequences of his own conduct. Besides his fatal 
 squabble with the Royal Society, which is the main source of all 
 his calamities, he quarrelled, I believe, with the British Association 
 on some equally trumpery ground, and is, as he admits himself, 
 deemed by his enemies (and let me add by friends too) a "crotchety, 
 impracticable, disappointed, cantankerous fellow" He assumes, 
 indeed, that these epithets are only applied to him because he is 
 more wise, more steadfast, more deep-sighted, and more honest than 
 the rest of mankind. f The French lady who expressed her wonder 
 that she should be the only person who was always in the right, is 
 the closest type I can recollect of such magnificent self-delusion. 
 
 I have said already that I cannot recollect any conversation 
 between Mr. Airy and myself touching the merits of the Calcu- 
 lating Machine, before the appearance of The Exposition of 1851 ; 
 but I have not unfrequently spoken to him very slightingly of 
 
 * This is the only real cause of complaint which Mr. Babbage could fairly urge 
 against me. As I had leisure enough, had some mechanical talent, knew the 
 principle of composing and decomposing series by differences very familiarly (few 
 mere amateurs have interpolated more than I), therefore, it may be said, I ought 
 to have made myself acquainted with Mr. Babbage's inventions, and given them 
 such aid as lay in my power. My answer is, that I did see a rough model of the 
 machine very early, though without any explanation ; but I perceived at once that 
 unless I was prepared to bow down and worship Mr. Babbage's idol, I should 
 have a very cold welcome. 
 
 ?* " But I have enemies. It is the curse 
 
 Of genius that it cannot spread its wings 
 
 And soar triumphant to the welcoming clouds 
 
 Without a hateful cawing from the crows. 
 
 Mark me ! I am not quite as other men ; 
 
 My aims are higher, more resolved than theirs, 
 
 And therefore they detest me. There's no shaft 
 
 Within the power of calumny to loose 
 
 Which is not bent at me. I am not blind 
 
 With soaring near the sun." 
 
 So says the " spasmodic" Firmilian: in Mr. Babbage's mouth the speech 
 would be sober earnest. 
 
80 
 
 Mr. Babbage as a member of the Board of Visitors, though I 
 cannot take upon myself to say that the Astronomer Royal agreed 
 with me. 
 
 It will be remembered, perhaps, that Mr. Airy exhibited to us 
 a half-sized model of the Alt-Azimuth Instrument, and particu- 
 larly called our attention to the support of the base, and its non- 
 liability to twist. I don't know whether all remember equally 
 well Mr. Babbage's request to see a drawing ;* as if that could be, 
 on such a point, a hundredth part as satisfactory as a model; 
 even if the required condition could be expressed by a draw- 
 ing. 
 
 On another occasion Mr. Babbage proposed, that one of the 
 ordinary duties of the Visitors should be to witness an observation 
 made with each of the instruments. He was asked by me, what 
 was to be done when the sky was unfavourable, or when a star of 
 sufficient magnitude to be seen in the daytime did not pass con- 
 veniently ? and his answer was, that the operation should be per- 
 formed as if a star was in the field ! When I further asked, what 
 advantage he expected from this game of make-belief ? I was told 
 that perhaps something would come of it, and that he did not 
 choose to hazard an opinion which might not be justified on trial.f 
 I then remonstrated on the hardship which he wished to impose on 
 better informed persons to stand by while he was thus acquiring 
 the rudiments of observatory routine, and suggested that he 
 should visit Greenwich when work was going on, adding, that 
 the Astronomer Royal and his first assistant would feel it their 
 pleasure as well as their duty to give every facility for instruc- 
 tion to any of the Visitors. Mr. Babbage's proposal to play 
 at observing was too ludicrous, and too badly supported, to be 
 entertained. 
 
 I will give another instance of Mr. Babbage's savoir faire, 
 which occurred at the meeting of 1853. The superintendence of 
 the Nautical Almanac had just been given to Mr. Hind, and Mr. 
 Babbage had heard that Mr. Airy had applied for the office. This 
 clearly was no business of ours. If the office had been given or 
 could have been given to Mr. Airy, and if it had been considered 
 by the Visitors incompatible with his duties as Astronomer Royal, 
 they clearly were called upon to express an opinion, but not other- 
 wise. The form of proceeding was in keeping with the subject- 
 matter. Mr. Babbage, who has a curious notion that & personal 
 attack upon a member of a committee has a precedence over all 
 other business, over the special business which is set forth in a 
 royal warrant, assumed a right to introduce this matter pre- 
 
 * I consider this was mere charlatanism and affectation, and to differ from 
 other people. I have been told that Clement declared Mr. Babbage could not 
 read a drawing ; but this must apply to a very early period in their association. 
 
 f This is another marked trait in Mr. Babbage. He does not feel that a 
 sincere man of science and a faithful counsellor gives his opinion, if he has one, 
 on the subjects which come before him, without arriere pensee or regard to self. 
 
81 
 
 mously to our regular business. This was not allowed, but a 
 good deal of time was wasted in overcoming his pertinacity.* 
 
 When the Observatory business was transacted, Mr. Babbage, 
 after requesting that the Astronomer Royal might not be present, 
 read a long minute of our proceedings in 1831, already alluded 
 to, in which it was recommended that the superintendence of 
 the Nautical Almanac should be withdrawn from Mr. Pond, 
 who was then Astronomer Royal, and who from bad health was 
 not a satisfactory superintendent. I learned afterwards, from 
 Stratford himself, that the matter was all arranged by his friends, 
 in order to give him the office ; and I should have less objec- 
 tion than I have to caucusses and jobs, if they were always as 
 well meant and as judiciously executed. The Reasoning of the 
 minute was feeble enough ; but I suppose it was felt more con- 
 siderate to rest the case upon the incompatibility of the offices, 
 than on the unjitness of the existing Astronomer Royal. Be that 
 as it may, Mr. Babbage inflicted the minute upon us (which 
 nobody considered of any weight), and then gravely told us, he 
 had heard that Mr. Airy had applied for the office, and that he 
 wished to know from us whether this report was true. He added, 
 that he had intended to ask this question of Admiral Beaufort, but 
 could not, as the admiral was not present. No one seemed to 
 know, and no one seemed to care, anything about the matter ; but 
 I think Mr. Babbage must have learned from the desultory con- 
 versation which followed, that the minute of 1831 was held in 
 slight esteem, and that the appointment of Mr. Airy would not 
 have been objected to as incompatible with his existing duties. 
 If Mr. Babbage had not requested the absence of Mr. Airy, his 
 question would have been immediately answered, and upon that 
 answer he might have proceeded or stayed. The getting the best, 
 and indeed only, evidence out of the way, the making the whole of 
 his scaffolding rest on the answer of a gentleman who was not 
 present, and this in a matter which was past ^and gone, and in 
 which we had no concern, shows, that there are classes of men 
 other than rulers, who justify the sarcasm of the Swedish statesman.^ 
 A very short notice will suffice for the editor of the Mechanics* 
 Magazine, the third of the trio.lj; 
 
 * The Visitors and gentlemen who have been invited to inspect the Royal 
 Observatory generally dine together afterwards, in the English manner. It is 
 essential, therefore, that the business should be finished in good time. In 1853, 
 and, I think, in some former years, Mr. Babbage's incapacity to understand or 
 comply with a regular mode of proceeding has taken up so much time as to 
 derange the dinner hour, and greatly to affect the sociality of the meeting. 
 
 f It is a small matter, but I will just hint to Mr. Babbage, who misquotes 
 the saying and makes the speaker a Dane, that there was a great religious war in 
 Germany, 200 years ago, frequently called the Thirty Years' War, that Gustavus 
 Adolphus, king of Sweden, was the great Protestant champion, and his Chancellor 
 Oxenstierna the principal director; and that this Swede, Oxenstierna,, is the 
 author of the phrase, " Nescis, mi fill, quantilld prudentid homines regantur." 
 
 J I understand the Editorship of the Mechanics' Magazine has passed into 
 other hands. My remarks apply to the person who discredited that office from 
 
 the discovery of the planet Neptune to the beginning of 1852. , ; 
 
 F 
 
82 
 
 Soon after the discovery of Neptune, an anonymous writer, 
 under the signature of " Exoniensis" published some remarks on 
 the conduct of the Astronomer Royal in the Mechanics' Magazine, 
 charging him with having fraudulently betrayed Mr. Adams's re- 
 searches to M. Leverrier, moved thereto by his dislike of English 
 science. This stupid libel was forwarded to one or two gentlemen, 
 who, treating it with the contempt it merited, expressed openly 
 their disgust at the article. The author was greatly displeased ; 
 and, through some silly acquaintance, attempted to bluster about 
 the matter. My excellent and gallant friend who was one of 
 the gentlemen concerned, asked jne, supposing me to be something 
 of a lawyer, whether he was liable to any legal proceedings for 
 the contemptuous language he had applied to "Exoniensis" I 
 assured him that an action for libel, at the suit of an anonymous 
 person, himself a libeller, was an absurdity which no man having 
 a tincture of the profession could dream of. As I was just putting 
 the last hand to a small publication, in reply to a letter by Mr. 
 Babbage on the subject of Neptune, I appended a note, saying, 
 that the letter of "Exoniensis" was so ridiculous that I supposed 
 it was a hoax. 
 
 So far as I know, neither the Editor nor "Exoniensis" have 
 retracted this foul calumny against Mr. Airy, or expressed any 
 contrition, though it is impossible that they should not know 
 how utterly false and absurd that calumny is.* I fancy the 
 Editor felt nettled by my remark, and, with the meanness of 
 persons of his kidney, has lent himself to the calumnies of MM. 
 Babbage and South, though he might have seen that they were 
 probably untrue. 
 
 I have already pointed out a discovery of the Editor, which 
 has escaped our notice as Visitors for nearly twenty years, that 
 the present Astronomer Royal has neglected the duties of his 
 office, falling greatly short of his predecessors, and that Mr. Main's 
 services are merely those of chaplain to the establishment. Ex 
 pede Herculem;* the intellectual stature of the Editor of the 
 
 * I need not remind the members of the Board of Visitors of what they know 
 so well, but I may inform the uninitiated, that Mr. Adams's case rested solely on 
 the evidence of the Astronomer Royal, voluntarily and spontaneously produced. 
 The whole difficulty arose from Mr. Adams's neglect in not replying to the letter 
 in which Mr. Airy asked, whether the new planet would account for the irregu- 
 larities in the radius vector as well as for those in the longitude of Uranus. Mr. 
 Adams could have answered this query in five minutes, if he could have overcome 
 the dislike he has to writing at all. To this remarkable idiosyncrasy all Mr. 
 Adams's correspondents can testify. A respectable critic, who did not, however, 
 understand the bearing of Mr. Airy's question, nor the facility with which it 
 could have been answered, assumed, rather ignorantly, that it was proposed in 
 a carping spirit. Fortunately, the more intelligent portion of scientific English- 
 men, while they admitted M. Leverrier 's merits with candour and admiration, 
 advocated those of Mr. Adams with patience and temper, and thus secured a just 
 appreciation of his claims, which his foolish partisans (British lions) would have 
 swamped in a personal or national dispute, and thought themselves very clever 
 and spirited. 
 
83 
 
 Mechanics' Magazine may be correctly meted by these fragments, 
 and his veracity and modesty are doubtless to match. 
 
 Of the three parties, each one thinks he has received some 
 injury from me and has joined with the other two to revenge it ; 
 whether by an actual conspiracy, or prompted by a community 
 of feeling and disposition, I cannot say. Mr. Babbage has 
 dwelt upon his defeat in the matter of the great equatoreal, 
 until it has affected his mind and deprived him of all judgment 
 where I am a party concerned. We know on the highest medical 
 authority, that " a long indulgence in dreams of vanity and pride 
 may upset a vigorous intellect," and " that a man may allow his 
 imagination to dwell on one idea until it acquires an unhealthy 
 ascendancy over his mind." I can only account for the hallucina- 
 tions contained in the twelfth chapter of The Exposition of 1851, 
 on the supposition that Mr. Babbage is a monomaniac at least, 
 though, like other monomaniacs, with some method in his flighti- 
 ness. 
 
 I have heard, and believe, that he has made considerable efforts 
 to stir up Sir James South's anger against me, no very difficult 
 matter I dare say, and I suspect that the embellishments of " the 
 Knight's Tale" have been hatched under the fostering incubation of 
 Mr. Babbage ; I don't mean that the falsehoods are of his sugges- 
 tion, far from it, but that Sir James's imagination has become 
 more vivid and his memory more retentive under Mr. Babbage's 
 encouragement. When the story had arrived at a proper degree of 
 maturity, I fancy that the cat's-paw was urged to publish it, and 
 that the Mechanics 1 Magazine was a willing and suitable vehicle. 
 
 It may be asked, why I have not rather appealed to a court of 
 law than to public opinion ; and certainly I might have proceeded 
 against one, if not all, of the parties with success and amusement. 
 But I should be sorry to inflict a pecuniary penalty on either 
 Mr. Babbage or Sir James South : nor could I well do so, as I 
 have received no damage beyond the expense of this publication. 
 MM. South and Babbage are chartered libellers ; they have fol- 
 lowed the trade for the last quarter of a century, and might almost 
 plead a prescriptive right to continue it. But besides this, even 
 if the mental disease of the one, and the imbecility of the other, 
 were less decided, I feel myself quite competent to defend myself, 
 leaving them the choice of weapons. As to the Editor, the case 
 is somewhat different ; but one may be libelled a good jeal by 
 such people before one Jtnows or feels it. In compassion to his 
 readers, perhaps but that consideration does not press ; and 
 readers, who can be so easily bamboozled scarcely deserve pity. 
 
 I have been so busy and so much indisposed, and so thoroughly 
 disgusted with my task, that I have only discharged it at last as a 
 matter of necessity. I am thoroughly ashamed of my consorts, 
 and am almost fearful of being classed in the same category with 
 them, because, in self-defence, I have used fairly and truly the 
 homely language in which I have been assailed. That men of our 
 age (I am the youngest of the three principals, and on the shady 
 
84 
 
 side of threescore) should be thus engaged, presents anything but 
 an agreeable picture ; and I wish I were out of the group. I can 
 only say that I have been dragged into the shindy against my 
 will ; and if my adversaries find themselves with broken heads, it 
 is not my fault. 
 
 " Ma chi urta col muro e suo '1 dolore, 
 E la materia torna sopra '1 matto." 
 
 I do not believe that any man who can reason on evidence and 
 probabilities will entertain Sir James South's calumnies for an 
 instant.* My direct evidence would, I trust, outweigh his hear- 
 say, even if the indirect and circumstantial proofs of his falsehood 
 were wanting. I have, besides, great confidence in the effect of a 
 true story over & false one, when the hearer is intelligent. I think, 
 too, that most of the statements in this pamphlet have been, at one 
 time or another, made to different members of the Board ; and 
 they can therefore judge of the probable truth of my story, from 
 its being substantially what it always has been. I have not, to 
 my knowledge, mis-stated or over-stated anything ; and though I 
 dare not assert that I have made no mistakes, I am sure that what 
 I have said is very nearly the literal truth. 
 
 But though I have small fear of my veracity being disputed, 
 and still less that I should be suspected of meanness in money 
 matters, I shall, I fear, hardly escape one imputation, which, if 
 true, would be a grievous one to me, that I am ill-natured and 
 revengeful, and that I have snubbed Sir James and " shown up " 
 Mr. Babbage from pique : yet I have not been the assailant, and 
 it has been with great reluctance that I have screwed myself up to 
 the sticking-point of publication. If I have treated Sir James 
 rather roughly, it is not so roughly as he deserved, nor so roughly 
 as I shall treat him, if I see occasion to chastise him a second 
 time. It will then be known how much I have spared him now ; 
 how long I have done so is evident from the lateness of this expo- 
 sition, which, if I had been ordinarily spiteful, would have ap- 
 peared twenty years ago. 
 
 There were other persons, besides Mr. Babbage, who gave 
 evidence as blundering as his, and who have no claim on my con- 
 sideration ; but I have avoided " showing them up," because it is 
 not necessary to my own vindication. f 
 
 I cteny malice to Mr. Babbage. I dissuaded him from lecturing 
 when ne could have no audience, a ridiculous idea which an 
 ill-natured man would have encouraged. After our quarrel I did 
 
 * Great allowances must be made. A man of coarse perception, indifferent 
 education, and violent temper, Kardly can speak truth, if he wishes it. Perhaps, 
 too, Davies Gilbert's suggestion, th*t Sir James is a little cracked, may be true. 
 Certainly his recollection does not ser>t him very correctly, or he would scarcely 
 have ventured to apply to himself the phrj.se, "My ways are ways of peace," 
 which he did with considerable unction (and to the amusement of his auditors) 
 when he was giving evidence on the arbitration. 
 
 f If Sir James had ventured to publish his promised account of the arbitra- 
 tion, I should, probably, have been less lenient. 
 
85 
 
 not publish his evidence on the arbitration, yet what would have 
 been more likely to be injurious to him as a mechanical projector 
 than the proof of his mechanical blundering ? If I have shown 
 him up at last, it is only when it was necessary to my own defence, 
 and when, by espousing the calumnies of Sir James South, he had 
 made them his own. If gentlemen could put themselves into my 
 place, I am sure they would wonder at my forbearance.* 
 
 I believe, however, that I have not been actuated solely, or even 
 principally, by personal motives. I abated Sir James South because 
 he was an acknowledged public nuisance ; he was no nuisance to 
 me. I made him pay his debts ; but no halfpenny came into my 
 pocket. It is not easy for a man to be sure of his own motives, 
 but I believe that mine were gather kindly feelings and respect to 
 others, and a love of justice, than spite towards Sir James. The 
 proof is, that when he was no longer troublesome he was no longer 
 troubled. When he took to the appropriate amusement of com- 
 pounding fireworks, I gave him no annoyance. 
 
 I protest, therefore, most strongly, against Mr. Babbage's hypo- 
 thesis, that hatred of Sir James South, or of himself as the friend 
 of Sir James South, has been the mainspring of my conduct for 
 the last five-and-twenty years. It is from a defect in his idiosyn- 
 cracy, which leads him to judge of other people by himself, that 
 this idle and mischievous delusion has arisen. Perhaps when he 
 looks about for my " party," and cannot name one living man who 
 will not contradict him, he may begin to suspect that he has not 
 " escaped the hopeless obscurity in which he was originally in- 
 volved." If Mr. Babbage could lay aside his morbid vanity and 
 intense malignity he would see things as they are, and as, I 
 believe, I have represented them. 
 
 I fear that there is no hope that Mr. Babbage can be unde- 
 ceived by any amount of evidence, nor does it personally concern 
 me. But if any of his friends think him still pervious to reason, I 
 am quite willing to justify myself against his complaint of persecu- 
 tion. There are at least half a dozen gentlemen of the highest 
 character, who know us both in various degrees of intimacy. To 
 one or any of these I will answer any charges he may make, which 
 are definite enough to admit of answer. I have already challenged 
 him to specify a single member of the "party," which, in his 
 belief, has been in league with me. ' Mr. Airy, who is the only 
 person named by Mr, Babbage, cannot recollect, any more than I 
 can, that we ever held a conversation upon the subject of the Dif- 
 ferential or Analytical Machines before the publication of The 
 Exposition of 1851. 
 
 The slender peg on which Mr. Babbage hangs his erroneous 
 convictions is this, that in 1831 I threatened to put him down as a 
 partisan of Sir James South, with whom I was at that time in 
 feud. I regret that I used, in my heat, an expression which has 
 
 * The charity which every man shows in forgiving his neighbour's wrongs, 
 and the liberality with which he dispenses his neighbour's fortune, would be 
 admirable, if the feeling cost anything. 
 
86 
 
 affected Mr. Babbage in a way I never intended.* As I was 
 angry at the time, I probably meant little or nothing seriously ; 
 but so far as I can recollect, it was this. At that time very few 
 people indeed, probably not half a dozen in all England, could be 
 said to be tolerably acquainted with the theory and practice of 
 astronomical observation, and Mr. Babbage certainly was not one 
 of the number. If I had any very definite meaning, I fancy I 
 must have alluded to this ignorance in Sir James South and his 
 supporters, and to my power, and perhaps to my intention, of 
 exposing it. Possibly I might have some vague feeling as to the 
 Lucasian Professorship. But as Mr. Babbage and I continued on 
 the same footing for four years after this occurrence, as we had 
 been before, and as acts of courtesy, I believe, passed between us 
 as before, I cannot allow that a worse interpretation ought to be 
 put on my words than I have suggested. Our quarrel must be 
 dated from the summer of 1835, and from that time to the present 
 year 1854, I am not conscious of having given Mr. Babbage the 
 slightest reason for just complaint. 
 
 As the Royal Society declined to hear what I had got to say,f 
 I have no intention of forcing myself upon its notice, though I shall 
 be quite ready to defend myself, if any fellows, after reading what 
 I have here written, shall require further explanation, and can 
 ensure me a patient hearing. I can have no doubt of the result 
 which every unbiassed and clearheaded gentleman must come to. 
 After what has past, I shall confine myself to self-defence, if I 
 am assailed. I do not want the incumbrance of any help or pro- 
 tection, but merely a fair hearing. 
 
 As Mr. Babbage has twice agitated the Board of Visitors, 
 though in vain, it is, I think, clear that he and I ought not to be 
 components of any Board which requires the honest co-operation 
 of its members. I have, I conceive, cleared myself of the imputa- 
 tions which can be considered disgraceful, but that I refer to the 
 Board of Visitors. If three members (MM. Babbage and South 
 
 * I should be infinitely sorry if I thought Mr. Babbage's delusions were 
 occasioned by this idle speech, but I am sure that it has merely come in aid of a 
 " foregone conclusion." 
 
 f I am quite aware this was an act of timidity, a feeling to which large 
 meetings are very subject. People do not like to be forced to listen to a story 
 and to decide. There are, too, a few members who slipped into the Royal 
 Society in olden times, without any motive (certainly without any scientific motive) 
 that one can see, and who are always on the watch for an opportunity to display 
 their imagined talents. By the mode of election introduced . a few years ago, 
 such intruders will in future be kept out. The advantage of this change is evi- 
 dent. If the Council had asked the consent of the Society for the new arrange- 
 ment, and if the balloting lists contained all the names thought eligible by the Coun- 
 cil, and not a specified number, I, for one, should have been rather better pleased. 
 
 Perhaps a small standing Committee, selected from our choicest fellows, 
 would be more competent to prepare the balloting lists than the fleeting Council, 
 and the appointment to such a Committee would be the highest honour we could 
 give. As the Royal Society is not amenable to the courts of law for its manage- 
 ment, but to the Lord Chancellor as visitor, the question whether the limitation 
 in numbers is in accordance with the Charter, is one of mere curiosity. I have 
 never understood the advantage of the rule. 
 
excepted) will signify to the President their wish that I should 
 retire, I will do so, without aking for reasons, or names, or dis- 
 puting their motives. At our next meeting I shall ask if such 
 intimations have been received, and how many, that I may act 
 accordingly. 
 
 APPENDIX. No. I. 
 
 Extracts from the Statutes of the Royal Society. 1840. 8vo. 
 
 London. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 In the obligation subscribed by each member, each Fellow declares " that he 
 will observe the Statutes and Orders of the said Society." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Of the Games and Form of Ejection. 
 
 "I. If any Fellow of the Society shall contemptuously or contumaciously 
 disobey the Statutes or Orders of the Society or Council, or shall, by speaking, 
 writing, or printing, publicly defame the Society ; or advisedly, maliciously, or 
 dishonestly, do anything to the damage, detriment, or dishonour thereof, he shall 
 be ejected out of the Society. 
 
 " II. Whensoever there shall appear to be cause for the Ejection of any Fellow 
 out of the Society, the subject shall be laid before the Council ; and if a majority 
 of the Council shall, after due deliberation, determine by ballot to propose to the 
 Society the Ejection of the said Fellow, the President shall in that case, at some 
 ordinary meeting of the Society, announce from the Chair such determination of 
 the Council ; and at the meeting next after that at which the said announcement 
 has been made, the Society shall proceed by ballot to determine the question ; 
 and on its appearing that two -thirds of the members present have voted for the 
 Ejection of the said Fellow, the President shall proceed to cancel his name in the 
 Register," &c. 
 
 In an earlier edition of the Statutes the form is more simple. The President 
 proposed the Ejection at any meeting, and the Society proceeded immediately to 
 ballot. Notice seems not to have been necessary. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Of the Election of the Council and Officers. 
 
 The business of Anniversary Meetings seems to be the election of the Council 
 and Officers, and nothing else ; and any discussion relating to other subjects is 
 probably irregular. It is, however, so convenient a time for questions and expla- 
 nations, that in ordinary cases one would be sorry to see the President exercise his 
 office too strictly (he is "to check irregularities and to keep all persons in 
 order "). At the ordinary meetings, no discussion is allowed of any subject not 
 immediately connected with the usual business, viz. " to read and hear letters, 
 reports, and other papers, concerning philosophical matters." 
 
88 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Of Special General Meetings of the Society. 
 
 "I. The President or Council may at any time call a Special General Meeting 
 of the Society when it may appear to them to be necessary. 
 
 " II. Any six Fellows may, by notice in writing, signed by them, and deli- 
 vered to one of the Secretaries at an Ordinary Meeting of the Society, require a 
 Special General Meeting of the Society to be convened for the purpose of consi- 
 dering and determining on the matters specified in such requisition. 
 
 " III. The Council shall, within one week after such requisition shall have 
 been so delivered, appoint a day for a Special General Meeting accordingly, and 
 give one week's notice thereof to each Fellow residing within the limits of the 
 threepenny post, stating in the notice the object of such meeting. At such 
 meeting no business shall be brought forward except what shall have been so 
 notified." 
 
 It is quite clear, from the above extracts, that if Mr. Babbage thought I 
 ought to be ejected from the Royal Society, he could only apply to the 
 Council. But when his accusations met with no attention, he had no right to 
 break the Statutes and Orders of the Society; that he was permitted to do so shows 
 some want of presence of mind in the President. There was, besides, no pretext 
 for asking any question of me through the President for the purposes of explana- 
 tion. I had replied to the very same question from the same person, under the 
 same President, at the Greenwich Visitation a few months before; and, I believe, 
 quite to the satisfaction of every one present, except Mr. Babbage. 
 
 When a particular course is marked out by law, it is questionable whether 
 any other course can be followed. Perhaps Mr. Babbage might have proceeded 
 under the second paragraph of Chapter XII., and called for a Special General 
 Meeting ;' a course to which I should have raised no objection, but contented 
 myself with requesting that the more recent cases of MM. Babbage and South, 
 "for publicly defaming the Society, by speaking, writing, and printing," should 
 be previously or simultaneously entered into. 
 
 Mr. Babbage might plead, with some plausibility, autrefois acquit, if the 
 following extract from page 19 of Sir James's Thirty-nine Charges is to be 
 relied on : 
 
 " The following note is from The Times of July 8 (1830) : < At a meeting 
 of the Council of the Royal Society, held in the Society's apartments, on 
 the 10th of June last, the Secretary has recorded the following speeches : 
 ' Captain Kater stated, that he wished to take the liberty of proposing a ques- 
 tion upon a subject in which he conceived the dignity and well-being of the 
 Society were concerned. As the Charter invests the Council with the sole govern- 
 ment of the Royal Society, and the exclusive management of all its concerns, he 
 conceived that one of the first duties of the Council was that of preserving the 
 statutes inviolate, and of noticing any infringement of them. He therefore re- 
 quested to be informed whether any and what steps were intended to be taken 
 respecting a publication by Mr. Babbage, entitled, On the Decline of Science in 
 England. The President thereupon observed, that deeply as he regretted the 
 injurious tendency of Mr. Babbage's publication, and disapproved of the uncandid 
 spirit which pervaded it, and notwithstanding the violation of the statutes, which 
 had in strictness subjected its author to the penalty of ejection from the Society ; 
 he was yet unwilling, in consideration of the past services which Mr. Babbage 
 has rendered to science, to proceed to this extremity ; but thought it would be 
 more consistent with the dignity of the Society to wave all further notice of this 
 matter. Captain Kater replied, that no one could have a higher respect for Mr. 
 Babbage's scientific attainments than he had, and that he had been in habits of 
 the most friendly intercourse with him for many years. Nothing but a sense of 
 duty had prompted his bringing this matter before the Council ; he felt it, how- 
 ever, also to be his duty to bow with implicit deference to the opinion of the Pre- 
 sident, and would therefore refrain from offering any further remark upon the 
 subject.' Present on this memorable occasion, ' Davies Gilbert, Esq., President, 
 
89 
 
 in the chair ; Mr. Charles Bell, Mr. Robert Brown, Mr. Frederick Daniell, Mr. 
 Henry Ellis, Captain Kater, Captain Sir John Franklin, Dr. Philip, Mr. Pond, 
 Mr. George Rennie, Dr. Roget, and Mr. Warburton.' Sir James then adds, 
 from himself, " Really, on finding that some of the above persons joined in such 
 a proceeding, one is led to suspect that the atmosphere of the Royal Society 
 Council-room must contain some pestiferous principle." If Sir James were an 
 authority, this remark would imply an agreement of the Council with the Presi- 
 dent, and consequently a sort of pardon. 
 
 But Sir James could not escape, if there is no statute of limitations. His 
 Thirty-nine Charges were only ignominiously cast aside, and no one thought him 
 worth ejection. As to myself, I was not a fellow for many years after the time 
 of the charge against me, so that the case, if it be one, is not provided for. 
 
 Seriously speaking, however, for the Royal Society is not strong in mooting 
 points (and I trust it never may be), if I had been allowed a hearing, I should have 
 proposed that the Council should appoint a small committee to decide, first on 
 the truth or probability of Sir James South's accusation, and then to point out 
 who of the three persons concerned should be requested to quit the Society. 
 There is no law or custom, that I ever heard of, which would apply to my case 
 (even if Sir James South's figments were believed, which I cannot think pos- 
 sible), but I should be sorry to contimie a member of any society in which even 
 a moderate minority were of opinion that I was de trap. The gallant knight, 
 indeed, said of the Royal Society, that " where ADMISSION is NO HONOUR, 
 EXPULSION CAN BE NO DISGRACE." I boast no such indifference, and deny 
 his aphorism, according to which, being kicked out of a public room or omnibus 
 would be no injury. I should quit the Society with regret, but should not feel 
 that the disgrace attached wholly to me. 
 
 Is it not rather odd, that the persons so jealous for the honour of the Royal 
 Society should themselves have barely escaped expulsion for a manifest breach of 
 statute; one in consideration of his past services, and the other because he 
 was not deserving so much attention ? 
 
 APPENDIX. No. II. 
 
 Special Meeting of Council., March 3, 1831, for considering 
 
 the Bye-laws, fyc. Mr. F. Baily in the chair. 
 
 (Sir James South not present.) 
 
 The Bye-laws were taken into consideration. 
 
 Letters from Mr. Plaskett and Mr. Hoppe were read, " from which it appeared 
 probable that the Charter of the Society would be signed, and the Society com- 
 mence its existence as a Corporate Body, before Friday the 1 1th of March, 1831, 
 the next ordinary day of meeting." 
 
 " That a Special General Meeting be summoned for March 11, 1831, to meet 
 after the business of the ordinary meeting of that day shall be concluded, to make 
 and establish such Bye-laws, and to elect Officers for the ensuing year, according 
 to the provisions of the Charter. 
 
 " That the Secretary shall issue circulars convening such Special General 
 Meeting." 
 
 The Charter received the sign manual on March 7. 1st of William IV. The 
 circulars were detained for twenty-four hours by Lieutenant Stratford, in order 
 that he might see Sir James South and give him the first information. I am 
 pretty certain that Sir James's absence from the Council was a calculated and 
 premeditated proceeding, in order that they might feel in a difficulty, and be 
 induced to propitiate him some way or other. 
 
90 
 
 Meeting of Council, March 11, 1831. 
 
 Mr. F. Baily in the chair. 
 Dr. Lee. 
 Mr. De Morgan. 
 Mr. Wrottesley. 
 Capt. Smyth. 
 Capt. Beaufort. 
 Mr. Riddle. 
 Sir James South. 
 Mr. Stratford. 
 
 " Resolved, That the Chairman be requested to state to the Ordinary Meet- 
 ing of this evening, at the close of the business, that the Charter has been received 
 and now lies on the table." 
 
 Also, " That the Council having circulated the notice, which, it is presumed, 
 has been received by all the members present, we are now a General Meeting, to 
 decide whether the Charter shall be read and accepted ; but previously to deter- 
 mine on the proceedings which shall be taken." 
 
 Also, " That the Council have passed the following resolution : 
 " ' That it be recommended to the present General Meeting to proceed to 
 elect the Council for the current year." .... 
 
 It was on the evening of the same day that Sir James disturbed the meeting, 
 as narrated in the text, and violated the arrangement of the Council, to which he 
 had been a consenting party three or four hours before. 
 
 Special General Meeting of the Society, March 11, 1831. 
 
 " The business of the ordinary monthly meeting being concluded, the Chairman 
 (Mr. F. Baily) stated, " That the Society must consider itself as the Special Gene- 
 ral Meeting summoned by the circular to meet that evening. 
 
 " After some discussion relative to the business for which the meeting was 
 convened, some doubts were expressed whether the meeting had been properly 
 summoned ; when it was resolved that this meeting do now adjourn." 
 
 Meeting of the Council, March 19, 1831. 
 (Sir James South present.} 
 
 " A form of circular convening a Special General Meeting for the 6th April 
 next ensuing was laid on the table, and having been read and approved of, was 
 ordered to be printed and to be issued on the 28th March next. The following 
 is a copy of the circular : 
 
 " ' Sir, 1 have the honour to inform you, that in consequence of some doubts 
 having arisen as to an informality in summoning the Special General Meeting for 
 the llth instant, no business was transacted; and that another Special General 
 Meeting of the Society will be held on Wednesday, April 6, at three o'clock in 
 the afternoon, for the purpose of deciding on the acceptance of the Charter, and 
 in case of such acceptance, for electing the Council for the current year, for de- 
 termining on the Bye-laws by which the Society shall then be governed.' "... 
 
91 
 
 Meeting of the Council, April 6, 1831. 
 
 " Mr. Riddle laid before the Council a letter from Mr. Barlow, intimating 
 that, from his other engagements, he cannot attend the meetings of the Council ; 
 and Mr. Stratford having stated that Sir James South was desirous of retiring for 
 the present year, it was resolved to recommend to the General Meeting of this day 
 to substitute in the balloting lists the names of Dr. Tiarks and the Rev. R. 
 Sheepshanks for those of Mr. Barlow and Sir James South." 
 
 APPENDIX. No. III. 
 
 I suspect that many persons who profess to have a great admiration for the 
 Calculating Machine really know very little of its functions, and I am quite sure 
 that the public in general is wholly ignorant of the matter. I will try to give 
 some idea of the results which might be expected from it, though, as I never 
 examined the machine, or read any description of it, I can say nothing as to its 
 contrivances or mode of operation. 
 
 Take any series such, for instance, as the squares of the natural numbers, 1, 
 
 2, 3, &c., and arrange as follows : 
 
 The squares are 1 4 9 16 25 
 
 Subtract each from the following, the first ) 3579 
 
 differences are ) 
 
 Repeat the operation, the second differences are 222 
 
 As these second differences are equal, the third differences are 0. 
 Now the problem to be solved is to recompose the original series, having only 
 the first figure in each horizontal line ; i. e. the first term 1 , the first difference 
 
 3, and the second difference 2. This requires merely a reversion of the previous 
 process of decomposition. 
 
 Write down the constant second difference, which is here 2, as many times as 
 you please. 
 
 To reproduce the first order of differences, set down 3, which is known or 
 given ; also write 3 under the first 2, and add, which give 5 ; write 5 under the 
 next 2, and add, which give 7, and so on : these are the first order of differences. 
 
 To reproduce the original series, set down 1 ; also write 1 under 3, the first 
 number of the first order of differences, and add, when you have 4 ; write 4 also 
 under 5, which is the next member of the first order, and add, you have 9; 
 write 9 under 7 and add, when you have 16 ; and thus the original series is 
 recomposed out of 1, 3. and 2; the general direction being, that you add the 
 number last obtained to the following number in the differences. 
 
 Second order of differences . . 2222 
 
 3579 
 
 First order of differences .. .. 3 5 7 9 11 
 
 1 4 9 16 25 
 
 Series required . . . . 1 4 9 16 25 36 
 
 Now the Calculating Machine, as I understand it, will just perform the same 
 thing, having the same data. Supply it with the first term 1 , the first difference 
 3, and the second difference 2, and it would, if it were finished and capable of work, 
 perform some equivalent operation to that which I have just described. 
 
 If the first number be 1, the first difference 7, the second difference 12, 
 and the third difference 6, an exactly similar process will reproduce the cubes of 
 the natural numbers, viz. 1, 8, 27, 64, &c. The number of orders of differences 
 does not alter the process, however numerous they may be. 
 
92 
 
 So far AS I know, the Calculating Machine, if completed, would not perform any 
 higher or more complicated operations than such as I have described, though its 
 use would not be limited to such simple series. I believe, indeed, that its powers 
 of addition are confined to decimals, and if so, there are many tables which would 
 not fall within its scope. 
 
 I have no doubt at all that the Calculating Machine contained many ingenious 
 contrivances, and was a specimen of most beautiful workmanship. It occupied 
 Mr. Babbage, and some of the very best workmen in England, for many years, 
 and cost about 17.000/. It is, perhaps, to be regretted that circumstances, not 
 yet fully explained, put a stop to the machine before it was completed, and when 
 the principal cost must have been incurred. Still I cannot help feeling sceptical 
 as to the practical utility of the machine, even if it had been completed. The 
 series to which it would have been most applicable have long been calculated, and 
 the computations it would have furnished are of so elementary a nature, that they 
 could be supplied, if wanted, at a very cheap rate indeed, and by persons of the 
 very lowest capacity. It would save no intellectual labour. 
 
 Of Mr. Babbage 's second machine, which he calls the Analytical Machine, I 
 can say nothing; it is not as yet in rerum naturd, nor has any intelligible 
 account of it been published by the inventor himself, in this country at least to 
 my knowledge. That Mr. Babbage has the highest admiration for this child 
 of his own brain is certain ; and some other persons, relying on his representations, 
 seem to believe in it too, though I cannot make out that any one understands it. 
 What we are told, except some very vague notices in the Ninth Bridgewater 
 Treatise, and in The Exposition of 1851, is by & foreign professor translated by 
 an English Countess. Would any rational man introduce his discovery in this 
 irregular and indirect manner ? When I remember the extravagant expect- 
 ations held out with regard to the Calculating Machine, I am not quite satisfied 
 that the Analytical Machine, if it could be executed, would justify what has 
 been promised for it ; neither is it certain it could be executed, were Mr. 
 Babbage's life sufficiently prolonged, and if he did not meanwhile invent some 
 third machine to which the Analytical would have to yield in its turn. 
 
 Notwithstanding " the great confidence the Whigs had in my devotion," my 
 opinion was never asked about Mr. Babbage or his machines. If it had been, I 
 should have referred my querist to Mr. Airy, or Professor Stokes, Professor 
 Willis, or Professor Miller, or some firm man who understood the subject ; I 
 should not have given any opinion myself, for th simple reason that I know 
 nothing about the matter, and am too indolent and too indifferent to acquaint 
 myself with it. If my friends had treated me Proteus fashion, and applied 
 thumb-screws, I should have advised that the Calculating Machine should be 
 finished under Mr. Babbage's direction (with, perhaps, some little control over 
 the purse), and that the second, or Analytical Machine, should be postponed till 
 the completion of the former. Although the machine might have been of little 
 value for actual calculation, it would have been something to have had a piece of 
 machinery which would calculate. The country would have been better satisfied, 
 I think, and we should at least have had a clever toy for our money, It is very 
 likely that some of the contrivances would have found useful applications else- 
 where, and that the novelties would have fructified in other brains. The pos- 
 sibility of these indirect advantages should always reckon for something when new 
 schemes are propounded. I have understood that, in the hands of Mr. Clement, 
 the construction of the Calculating Machine formed a school of better work- 
 manship than had hitherto existed. If it tended to develope the talents of Mr. 
 oseph Whitworth, the cost has been amply repaid. 
 
 London '.Printed by G. BARCLAY, Castle St. Leicester Sq. 
 
 
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