80 Retrospective Criticism^ 



assure him, on the authority of my excellent friend E. G., that the pheno- 

 menon was witnessed by several others in company with him, of whom, I 

 may add, more than one, as well as E. G. himself, the Cambridge tripos for 

 their respective years would point out as distinguished mathematicians. 



The reference to " Phil, Trans.y p. 1793.," should doubtless have been 

 "for the j/ear 1793." 



On the review of Strutt's S^lva Britdnnica^ partial as I am to the subject 

 of which it treats, I am restrained by motives of delicacy, quite of a private 

 nature, from offering any remarks. I may, however, without impropriety, 

 express my admiration — in common with all those (and they are not a 

 few) whom I have heard speak on the subject — of the beautiful wood-cuts 

 which the review has been the means of introducing, and which are so 

 highly creditable to the able artist you have employed. However expen- 

 sive these vignettes may be, — and from their merits I judge, Mr. Editor, 

 that you must have paid handsomely for ^hem, — I can inform you that 

 they are valued by your purchasers as they deserve to be, and serve to 

 bring your publication into repute. And here, as an individual subscriber 

 to your Magazine, I may be allowed to offer my thanks to the printer for 

 having, as it should seem, taken some pains in striking off the copies, so as 

 to produce clear bright impressions from the blocks. Of course I can only 

 speak of the specimens I have examined, which amount, however, in this 

 case to between twenty and thirty copies of the work. I cannot endure to 

 see a weak indistinct impression of a beautiful wood-cut. The sight of it 

 gives me quit an uncomfortable feeling, analogous to that (and of longer 

 duration) which you may conceive an alderman to experience when, sitting 

 down to a luxurious repast, he finds the turtle, venison, &c., utterly spoiled 

 in the cooking. 



The Number 1 am speaking of, I observe, contains nothing under the 

 head of Retrospective Criticism, and but little under that of Queries and 

 Answers ; which constitute, to my mind, by no means the least interesting 

 or useful portions of your pages, and are those, indeed, which I usually 

 submit to the earliest perusal. You tell us you prefer giving these miscel- 

 laneous matters in masses ; and perhaps you are right. At the same time 

 1 would suggest, that the answers should in all cases appear as soon after 

 the questions have been put as circumstances will permit ; and that 

 the Retrospective Criticism should be separated at no greater distance from 

 the subjects to which it refers than can well be avoided. Before I quit 

 the subject of this department of your work, I must beg to repeat the ad- 

 vice I have already given towards the commencement of my remarks, viz. 

 that you will not fail to exercise your own discretion on all matters that 

 are forwarded to you, and that you will unscrupulously reject such as are 

 unworthy of insertion. Queries are sometimes put to you, the answers to 

 which are not worth advertising for in print j because any one the least 

 acquainted with the subject could, on application being made to him, at 

 once have satisfied the enquirer. Thus, for example, had your corre- 

 spondent Mr. Thomas Morgan (No. XV, p. 476.) applied to any one at all 

 conversant with entomology, he would immediately have had a solution of 

 his problem about the " minute eggs produced from the greenish and 

 black-marked worms which are found on cabbages ;" or had he only re- 

 ferred to Vol. III. p. 52. of your Magazine, he would there have found the 

 insect itself figured and described, though under a wrong name, as appears 

 from a subsequent communication on the subject by an able hand. (p. 452.) 

 It is rather too late in the day to put forth such matters as remarkable 

 occurrences. It is obvious that whatever a man observes for thcfii^st time, 

 is new and strange to him; accordingly some tyro in natural history, only just 

 beginning to attend to the wonders of creation by which he is surrounded, 

 observes some very common-place phenomenon, with which, of course he is 

 naturally much struck, and straightway he sends off an account of it to. 



