SCIENTIFIC NEWS, 151 



It is with regret that I find myself under the necessity of 

 taking notice of some passages in the preface to Dr. Thomp- 

 son's Annals of Philosophy, in which he animadverts upon 

 the English Philosophical Journals. 



1. Of my Journal he says, " that for several years it was 

 <c excellent," and adds, u that for some years past, if report 

 " says true, it has not been the property of the original editor, 

 " but of a bookseller ; and, in reality, edited, not by Mr. 

 " Nicholson, but by some unknown person employed by the 

 " bookseller. 



2. Of the Philosophical Magazine, which he calls a rival 

 publication, he says * it is edited by Mr. Tullock, a printer 

 " from Glasgow, and publisher of the evening newspaper, 

 " called the Star," and that w it, perhaps, never contained so 

 " much original matter as my Journal. 



3. Of the Repertory of Arts, he says it consists chiefly of 

 specifications of patent inventions, with a few additional pa- 

 pers copied from the Transactions, or other Journals ; but he 

 overlooks the remarks and discussions from the inventors and 

 others, which are inserted in that work. 



4. And of the Retrospect of Discoveries -, or Abridgment of 

 periodical and other Publications, he says, that it is, as the 

 title implies, merely an abridgment of the other three Journals, 

 of the British Transactions, and of one or two French periodical 

 works. But, in so doing, he denies the existence of those 

 numerous, clear, and able criticisms upon the subjects so 

 abridged, which constitute part of the plan of the Retrospect, 

 and are every where to be met with. 



5. His deduction then follows : " Such," says he, ft being 

 <( the state of the English Philosophical Journals, our readers 

 " will not be surprized that we (Dr. TV) venture to oiler our 

 " claims to the attention of the public." 



Whether it became Doctor Thompson to have assumed the 

 office of Censor, with regard to the productions which he ap- 

 pears to consider as rivals j or whether it would have been more 

 decorous for him, as a man offering himself in the venerable 

 presence of the public, to have felt the consciousness of human 

 infirmity, and expecting to have his own faults viewed with 

 candour, to have avoided the volunteer ta$k of exposing those 

 of others. Into these points I do not enquire j and, if these 

 had been the only objects of question, I should have been silent. 



