A Budget of Paradoxes Volume I Part 17

His anti-Newtonian discussions are confined to the preliminary chapters of his _Evening Amus.e.m.e.nts_,[445] a series of astronomical lessons in nineteen volumes, following the moon through a period of the golden numbers.

There is a mistake about him which can never be destroyed. It is constantly said that, at his celebrated trial in 1792, for sedition and opposition to the Liturgy, etc., he was _expelled_ from the University. He was _banished_. People cannot see the difference; but it made all the difference to {198} Mr. Frend. He held his fellows.h.i.+p and its profits till his marriage in 1808, and was a member of the University and of its Senate till his death in 1841, as any Cambridge Calendar up to 1841 will show.

That they would have expelled him if they could, is perfectly true; and there is a funny story--also perfectly true--about their first proceedings being under a statute which would have given the power, had it not been discovered during the proceedings that the statute did not exist. It had come so near to existence as to be entered into the Vice-Chancellor's book for his signature, which it wanted, as was not seen till Mr. Frend exposed it: in fact, the statute had never actually pa.s.sed.

There is an absurd mistake in Gunning's[446] _Reminiscences of Cambridge_.

In quoting a pa.s.sage of Mr. Frend's pamphlet, which was very obnoxious to the existing Government, it is printed that the poor market-women complained that they were to be _scotched_ a quarter of their wages by taxation; and attention is called to the word by its being three times printed in italics. In the pamphlet it is "sconced"; that very common old word for fined or mulcted.

Lord Lyndhurst,[447] who has [1863] just pa.s.sed away under a load of years and honors, was Mr. Frend's private pupil at Cambridge. At the time of the celebrated trial, he and two others amused themselves, and vented the feeling which was very strong among the undergraduates, by chalking the walls of Cambridge with "Frend for ever!" While thus engaged in what, using the term legally, we are probably to call his first publication, he and his friends were surprised by the proctors. Flight and chase followed of course: Copley and one of the others, Serjeant Rough,[448] escaped: the {199} third, whose name I forget, but who afterwards, I have been told was a bishop,[449] being lame, was captured and impositioned. Looking at the Cambridge Calendar to verify the fact that Copley was an undergraduate at the time, I find that there are but two other men in the list of honors of his year whose names are now widely remembered. And they were both celebrated schoolmasters; Butler[450] of Harrow, and Tate[451] of Richmond.

But Mr. Frend had another noted pupil. I once had a conversation with a very remarkable man, who was generally called "Place,[452] the tailor," but who was politician, political economist, etc., etc. He sat in the room above his shop--he was then a thriving master tailor at Charing Cross--surrounded by books enough for nine, to shame a proverb. The blue books alone, cut up into strips, would have measured Great Britain for oh-no-we-never-mention-'ems, the Highlands included. I cannot find a biography of this worthy and able man. I happened to mention William Frend, and he said, "Ah! my old master, as I always call him. Many and many a time, and year after year, did he come in every {200} now and then to give me instruction, while I was sitting on the board, working for my living, you know."

Place, who really was a sound economist, is joined with Cobbett, because they were together at one time, and because he was, in 1800, etc., a great Radical. But for Cobbett he had a great contempt. He told me the following story. He and others were advising with Cobbett about the defense he was to make on a trial for seditious libel which was coming on. Said Place, "You must put in the letters you have received from Ministers, members of the Commons from the Speaker downwards, etc., about your Register, and their wish to have subjects noted. You must then ask the jury whether a person so addressed must be considered as a common sower of sedition, etc. You will be acquitted; nay, if your intention should get about, very likely they will manage to stop proceedings." Cobbett was too much disturbed to listen; he walked about the room e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.n.g. "D---- the prison!" and the like. He had not the sense to follow the advice, and was convicted.

Cobbett, to go on with the chain, was a political acrobat, ready for any kind of posture. A friend of mine gave me several times an account of a mission to him. A Tory member--those who know the old Tory world may look for his initials in initials of two consecutive words of "Pay his money with interest"--who was, of course, a political opponent, thought Cobbett had been hardly used, and determined to subscribe handsomely towards the expenses he was incurring as a candidate. My friend was commissioned to hand over the money--a bag of sovereigns, that notes might not be traced.

He went into Cobbett's committee-room, told the patriot his errand, and put the money on the table. "And to whom, sir, am I indebted?" said Cobbett.

"The donor," was the answer, "is Mr. Andrew Theophilus Smith," or some such unlikely pair of baptismals. "Ah!" said Cobbett, "I have known Mr. A. T. S.

a long time! he was always a true friend of his country!" {201}

To return to Place. He is a noted instance of the advantage of our jury system, which never asks a man's politics, etc. The late King of Hanover, when Duke of c.u.mberland, being unpopular, was brought under unjust suspicions by the suicide of his valet: he must have seduced the wife and murdered the husband. The charges were as absurd as those brought against the Englishman in the Frenchman's attempt at satirical verses upon him:

"The Englishman is a very bad man; He drink the beer and he steal the can: He kiss the wife and he beat the man; And the Englishman is a very G---- d----."

The charges were revived in a much later day, and the defense might have given some trouble. But Place, who had been the foreman at the inquest, came forward, and settled the question in a few lines. Every one knew that the old Radical was quite free of all disposition to suppress truth from wish to curry favor with royalty.

John Speed,[453] the author of the _English History_,[454] (1632) which Bishop Nicolson[455] calls the best chronicle extant, was a man, like Place, of no education, but what he gave himself. The bishop says he would have done better if he had a better training: but what, he adds, could have been expected from a tailor! This Speed was, as well as Place. But he was {202} released from manual labor by Sir Fulk Grevil,[456] who enabled him to study.

A STORY ON SIMSON.

I have elsewhere noticed that those who oppose the mysteries of algebra do not ridicule them; this I want the cyclometers to do. Of the three who wrote against the great point, the negative quant.i.ty, and the uses of 0 which are connected with it, only one could fire a squib. That Robert Simson[457] should do such a thing will be judged impossible by all who admit tradition. I do not vouch for the following; I give it as a proof of the impression which prevailed about him:

He used to sit at his open window on the ground floor, as deep in geometry as a Robert Simson ought to be. Here he would be accosted by beggars, to whom he generally gave a trifle, he roused himself to hear a few words of the story, made his donation, and instantly dropped down into his depths.

Some wags one day stopped a mendicant who was on his way to the window with "Now, my man, do as we tell you, and you will get something from that gentleman, and a s.h.i.+lling from us besides. You will go and say you are in distress, he will ask you who you are, and you will say you are Robert Simson, son of John Simson of Kirktonhill." The man did as he was told; Simson quietly gave him a coin, and dropped off. The wags watched a little, and saw him rouse himself again, and exclaim "Robert Simson, son of John Simson of Kirktonhill! why, that is myself. That man must be an impostor."

Lord Brougham tells the same story, with some difference of details.

{203}

BARON MASERES.

Baron Maseres[458] was, as a writer, dry; those who knew his writings will feel that he seldom could have taken in a joke or issued a pun. Maseres was the fourth wrangler of 1752, and first Chancellor's medallist (or highest in cla.s.sics); his second was Porteus[459] (afterward Bishop of London).

Waring[460] came five years after him: he could not get Maseres through the second page of his first book on algebra; a negative quant.i.ty stood like a lion in the way. In 1758 he published his _Dissertation on the Use of the Negative Sign_,[461] 4to. There are some who care little about + and -, who would give it house-room for the sake of the four words "Printed by Samuel Richardson."

Maseres speaks as follows: "A single quant.i.ty can never be marked with either of those signs, or considered as either affirmative or negative; for if any single quant.i.ty, as b, is marked either with the sign + or with the sign - without a.s.signing some other quant.i.ty, as a, to which it is to be added, or from which it is to be subtracted, the mark will have no meaning or signification: thus if it be said that the square of -5, or the product of -5 into -5, is equal to +25, such an a.s.sertion must either signify no more than that 5 times 5 is equal to 25 without any regard to the signs, or it must be mere nonsense and unintelligible jargon. I speak according to the foregoing definition, by which the affirmativeness or negativeness of any quant.i.ty implies a relation to another quant.i.ty of the same kind to which it {204} is added, or from which it is subtracted; for it may perhaps be very clear and intelligible to those who have formed to themselves some other idea of affirmative and negative quant.i.ties different from that above defined."

Nothing can be more correct, or more identically logical: +5 and -5, standing alone, are jargon if +5 and -5 are to be understood as without reference to another quant.i.ty. But those who have "formed to themselves some other idea" see meaning enough. The great difficulty of the opponents of algebra lay in want of power or will to see extension of terms. Maseres is right when he implies that extension, accompanied by its refusal, makes jargon. One of my paradoxers was present at a meeting of the Royal Society (in 1864, I think) and asked permission to make some remarks upon a paper.

He rambled into other things, and, naming me, said that I had written a book in which two sides of a triangle are p.r.o.nounced _equal_ to the third.[462] So they are, in the sense in which the word is used in complete algebra; in which A + B = C makes A, B, C, three sides of a triangle, and declares that going over A and B, one after the other, is equivalent, in change of place, to going over C at once. My critic, who might, if he pleased, have objected to extension, insisted upon reading me in unextended meaning.

On the other hand, it must be said that those who wrote on the other idea wrote very obscurely about it and justified Des Cartes (_De Methodo_)[463]

when he said: "Algebram vero, ut solet doceri, animadverti certis regulis et numerandi formulis ita esse contentam, ut videatur potius ars quaedam confusa, cujus usu ingenium quodam modo turbatur et obscuratur, quam scientia qua excolatur et perspicacius {205} reddatur."[464] Maseres wrote this sentence on the t.i.tle of his own work, now before me; he would have made it his motto if he had found it earlier.

There is, I believe, in Cobbett's _Annual Register_,[465] an account of an interview between Maseres and Cobbett when in prison.

The conversation of Maseres was lively, and full of serious anecdote: but only one attempt at humorous satire is recorded of him; it is an instructive one. He was born in 1731 (Dec. 15), and his father was a refugee. French was the language of the house, with the p.r.o.nunciation of the time of Louis XIV. He lived until 1824 (May 19), and saw the race of refugees who were driven out by the first Revolution. Their p.r.o.nunciation differed greatly from his own; and he used to amuse himself by mimicking them. Those who heard him and them had the two schools of p.r.o.nunciation before them at once; a thing which seldom happens. It might even yet be worth while to examine the Canadian p.r.o.nunciation.

Maseres went as Attorney-General to Quebec; and was appointed Cursitor Baron of our Exchequer in 1773. There is a curious story about his mission to Canada, which I have heard as good tradition, but have never seen in print. The reader shall have it as cheap as I; and I confess I rather believe it. Maseres was inveterately honest; he could not, at the bar, bear to see his own client victorious, when he knew his cause was a bad one. On a certain occasion he was in a cause which he knew would go against him if a certain case were quoted. Neither the judge nor the opposite counsel seemed to remember this case, and Maseres could not help dropping an allusion which brought it out. {206} His business as a barrister fell off, of course. Some time after, Mr. Pitt (Chatham) wanted a lawyer to send to Canada on a private mission, and wanted a _very honest man_. Some one mentioned Maseres, and told the above story: Pitt saw that he had got the man he wanted. The mission was satisfactorily performed, and Maseres remained as Attorney-General.

The _Doctrine of Life Annuities_[466] (4to, 726 pages, 1783) is a strange paradox. Its size, the heavy dissertations on the national debt, and the depth of algebra supposed known, put it out of the question as an elementary work, and it is unfitted for the higher student by its elaborate attempt at elementary character, shown in its rejection of forms derived from chances in favor of _the average_, and its exhibition of the separate values of the years of an annuity, as arithmetical ill.u.s.trations. It is a climax of unsaleability, unreadability, and inutility. For intrinsic nullity of interest, and dilution of little matter with much ink, I can compare this book to nothing but that of Claude de St. Martin, elsewhere mentioned, or the lectures _On the Nature and Properties of Logarithms_, by James Little,[467] Dublin, 1830, 8vo. (254 heavy pages of many words and few symbols), a wonderful weight of weariness.

The stock of this work on annuities, very little diminished, was given by the author to William Frend, who paid warehouse room for it until about 1835, when he consulted me as to its disposal. As no publisher could be found who would take it as a gift, for any purpose of sale, it was consigned, all but a few copies, to a buyer of waste paper.

Baron Maseres's republications are well known: the _Scriptores Logarithmici_[468] is a set of valuable reprints, mixed {207} with much which might better have entered into another collection. It is not so well known that there is a volume of optical reprints, _Scriptores Optici_, London, 1823, 4to, edited for the veteran of ninety-two by Mr. Babbage[469]

at twenty-nine. This excellent volume contains James Gregory, Des Cartes, Halley, Barrow, and the optical writings of Huyghens, the _Principia_ of the undulatory theory. It also contains, by the sort of whim in which such men as Maseres, myself, and some others are apt to indulge, a reprint of "The great new Art of weighing Vanity,"[470] by M. Patrick Mathers, Arch-Bedel to the University of St. Andrews, Glasgow, 1672. Professor Sinclair,[471] of Glasgow, a good man at clearing mines of the water which they did not want, and furnis.h.i.+ng cities with water which they did want, seems to have written absurdly about hydrostatics, and to have attacked a certain Sanders,[472] M.A. So Sanders, a.s.sisted by James Gregory, published a heavy bit of jocosity about him. This story of the authors.h.i.+p rested on a note made in his {208} copy by Robert Gray, M.D.; but it has since been fully confirmed by a letter of James Gregory to Collins, in the Macclesfield Correspondence. "There is one Master Sinclair, who did write the _Ars Magna et Nova_,[473] a pitiful ignorant fellow, who hath lately written horrid nonsense in the hydrostatics, and hath abused a master in the University, one Mr. Sanders, in print. This Mr. Sanders ... is resolved to cause the Bedel of the University to write against him.... We resolve to make excellent sport with him."

On this I make two remarks: First, I have learned from experience that old notes, made in books by their possessors, are statements of high authority: they are almost always confirmed. I do not receive them without hesitation; but I believe that of all the statements about books which rest on one authority, there is a larger percentage of truth in the written word than in the printed word. Secondly, I mourn to think that when the New Zealander picks up his old copy of this book, and reads it by the a.s.sociations of his own day, he may, in spite of the many a.s.surances I have received that my _Athenaeum Budget_ was amusing, feel me to be as heavy as I feel James Gregory and Sanders. But he will see that I knew what was coming, which Gregory did not.

MR. FREND'S BURLESQUE.

It was left for Mr. Frend to prove that an impugner of algebra could attempt ridicule. He was, in 1803, editor of a periodical _The Gentleman's Monthly Miscellany_, which lasted a few months.[474] To this, among other things, he contributed the following, in burlesque of the use made of 0, to which he objected.[475] The imitation of Rabelais, a writer {209} in whom he delighted, is good: to those who have never dipped, it may give such a notion as they would not easily get elsewhere. The point of the satire is not so good. But in truth it is not easy to make pungent scoffs upon what is common sense to all mankind. Who can laugh with effect at six times nothing is nothing, as false or unintelligible? In an article intended for that undistinguis.h.i.+ng know-0 the "general reader," there would have been no force of satire, if _division_ by 0 had been separated from multiplication by the same.

I have followed the above by another squib, by the same author, on the English language. The satire is covertly aimed at theological phraseology; and any one who watches this subject will see that it is a very just observation that the Greek words are not boiled enough.

PANTAGRUEL'S DECISION _of the_ QUESTION _about_ NOTHING.

"Pantagruel determined to have a snug afternoon with Epistemon and Panurge.

Dinner was ordered to be set in a small parlor, and a particular batch of Hermitage with some choice Burgundy to be drawn from a remote corner of the cellar upon the occasion. By way of lunch, about an hour before dinner, Pantagruel was composing his stomach with German sausages, reindeer's tongues, oysters, brawn, and half a dozen different sorts of English beer just come into fas.h.i.+on, when a most thundering knocking was heard at the great gate, and from the noise they expected it to announce the arrival at least of the First Consul, or king Gargantua. Panurge was sent to reconnoiter, and after a quarter of an hour's absence, returned with the news that the University of Pontemaca was waiting his highness's leisure in the great hall, to propound a question which {210} had turned the brains of thirty-nine students, and had flung twenty-seven more into a high fever.

With all my heart, says Pantagruel, and swallowed down three quarts of Burton ale; but remember, it wants but an hour of dinner time, and the question must be asked in as few words as possible; for I cannot deprive myself of the pleasure I expected to enjoy in the company of my good friends for a set of mad-headed masters. I wish brother John was here to settle these matters with the black gentry.

"Having said or rather growled this, he proceeded to the hall of ceremony, and mounted his throne; Epistemon and Panurge standing on each side, but two steps below him. Then advanced to the throne the three beadles of the University of Pontemaca with their silver staves on their shoulders, and velvet caps on their heads, and they were followed by three times three doctors, and thrice three times three masters of art; for everything was done in Pontemaca by the number three, and on this account the address was written on parchment, one foot in breadth, and thrice three times thrice three feet in length. The beadles struck the ground with their heads and their staves three times in approaching the throne; the doctors struck the ground with their heads thrice three times, and the masters did the same thrice each time, beating the ground with their heads thrice three times.

This was the accustomed form of approaching the throne, time out of mind, and it was said to be emblematic of the usual prostration of science to the throne of greatness.

"The mathematical professor, after having spit, and hawked, and cleared his throat, and blown his nose on a handkerchief lent to him, for he had forgotten to bring his own, began to read the address. In this he was a.s.sisted by three masters of arts, one of whom, with a silver pen, pointed out the stops; the second with a small stick rapped his knuckles when he was to raise or lower his voice; and a third pulled his hair behind when he was to look Pantagruel in the face. Pantagruel began to chafe like a lion: {211} he turned first on one side, then on the other: he listened and groaned, and groaned and listened, and was in the utmost cogitabundity of cogitation. His countenance began to brighten, when, at the end of an hour, the reader stammered out these words:

"'It has therefore been most clearly proved that as all matter may be divided into parts infinitely smaller than the infinitely smallest part of the infinitesimal of nothing, so nothing has all the properties of something, and may become, by just and lawful right, susceptible of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, squaring, and cubing: that it is to all intents and purposes as good as anything that has been, is, or can be taught in the nine universities of the land, and to deprive it of its rights is a most cruel innovation and usurpation, tending to destroy all just subordination in the world, making all universities superfluous, leveling vice-chancellors, doctors, and proctors, masters, bachelors, and scholars, to the mean and contemptible state of butchers and tallow-chandlers, bricklayers and chimney-sweepers, who, if it were not for these learned mysteries, might think that they knew as much as their betters. Every one then, who has the good of science at heart, must pray for the interference of his highness to put a stop to all the disputes about nothing, and by his decision to convince all gainsayers that the science of nothing is taught in the best manner in the universities, to the great edification and improvement of all the youth in the land.'

"Here Pantagruel whispered in the ear of Panurge, who nodded to Epistemon, and they two left the a.s.sembly, and did not return for an hour, till the orator had finished his task. The three beadles had thrice struck the ground with their heads and staves, the doctors had finished their compliments, and the masters were making their twenty-seven prostrations.

Epistemon and Panurge went up to Pantagruel, whom they found fast asleep and snoring; nor could he be roused but by as many tugs as there had been {212} bowings from the corps of learning. At last he opened his eyes, gave a good stretch, made half a dozen yawns, and called for a stoup of wine. I thank you, my masters, says he; so sound a nap I have not had since I came from the island of Priestfolly. Have you dined, my masters? They answered the question by as many bows as at entrance; but his highness left them to the care of Panurge, and retired to the little parlor with Epistemon, where they burst into a fit of laughter, declaring that this learned Baragouin about nothing was just as intelligible as the lawyer's Galimathias. Panurge conducted the learned body into a large saloon, and each in his way hearing a clattering of plates and gla.s.ses, congratulated himself on his approaching good cheer. There they were left by Panurge, who took his chair by Pantagruel just as the soup was removed, but he made up for the want of that part of his dinner by a pint of champagne. The learning of the university had whetted their appet.i.tes; what they each ate it is needless to recite; good wine, good stories, and hearty laughs went round, and three hours elapsed before one soul of them recollected the hungry students of Pontemaca.

"Epistemon reminded them of the business in hand, and orders were given for a fresh dozen of hermitage to be put upon table, and the royal attendants to get ready. As soon as the dozen bottles were emptied, Pantagruel rose from table, the royal trumpets sounded, and he was accompanied by the great officers of his court into the large dining hall, where was a table with forty-two covers. Pantagruel sat at the head, Epistemon at the bottom, and Panurge in the middle, opposite an immense silver tureen, which would hold fifty gallons of soup. The wise men of Pontemaca then took their seats according to seniority. Every countenance glistened with delight; the music struck up; the dishes were uncovered. Panurge had enough to do to handle the immense silver ladle: Pantagruel and Epistemon had no time for eating, they were fully employed in carving. The bill {213} of fare announced the names of a hundred different dishes. From Panurge's ladle came into the soup plate as much as he took every time out of the tureen; and as it was the rule of the court that every one should appear to eat, as long as he sat at table, there was the clattering of nine and thirty spoons against the silver soup-plates for a quarter of an hour. They were then removed, and knives and forks were in motion for half an hour. Gla.s.ses were continually handed round in the mean time, and then everything was removed, except the great tureen of soup. The second course was now served up, in dispatching which half an hour was consumed; and at the conclusion the wise men of Pontemaca had just as much in their stomachs as Pantagruel in his head from their address: for nothing was cooked up for them in every possible shape that Panurge could devise.

"Wine-gla.s.ses, large decanters, fruit dishes, and plates were now set on.

Pantagruel and Epistemon alternately gave b.u.mper toasts: the University of Pontemaca, the eye of the world, the mother of taste and good sense and universal learning, the patroness of utility, and the second only to Pantagruel in wisdom and virtue (for these were her t.i.tles), was drank standing with thrice three times three, and huzzas and clattering of gla.s.ses; but to such wine the wise men of Pontemaca had not been accustomed; and though Pantagruel did not suffer one to rise from table till the eighty-first gla.s.s had been emptied, not even the weakest headed master of arts felt his head in the least indisposed. The decanters indeed were often removed, but they were brought back replenished, filled always with nothing.

"Silence was now proclaimed, and in a trice Panurge leaped into the large silver tureen. Thence he made his bows to Pantagruel and the whole company, and commenced an oration of signs, which lasted an hour and a half, and in which he went over all the matter contained in the Pontemaca address; and though the wise men looked very serious during the whole time, Pantagruel himself and his whole {214} court could not help indulging in repeated bursts of laughter. It was universally acknowledged that he excelled himself, and that the arguments by which he beat the English masters of arts at Paris were nothing to the exquisite selection of att.i.tudes which he this day a.s.sumed. The greatest shouts of applause were excited when he was running thrice round the tureen on its rim, with his left hand holding his nose, and the other exercising itself nine and thirty times on his back. In this att.i.tude he concluded with his back to the professor of mathematics; and at the instant he gave his last flap, by a sudden jump, and turning heels over head in the air, he presented himself face to face to the professor, and standing on his left leg, with his left hand holding his nose, he presented to him, in a white satin bag, Pantagruel's royal decree.