716 



Monthly Review of Literature. 



Haunts, like a hallowing spirit, every vale 

 And mountain-hollow, Time shall honour thee. 

 When many an empire shall have pass'd away. 

 And forests wave where capitals are seen ! 



One scrap more one that, if possible, 

 out-herods Herod ! We do not know what 

 it is about but no matter : 

 Go, tell the fortress of the hrave and free, 

 How beautiful her patriotic roar 

 Of Vict'ry, shouting o'#r the new-made dead, 

 Like Madness, when she hoots a murd'rous joy ; 

 So shall a war-fame flourish ever green, 

 And laurell'd History be trumpet-tongued. 

 To fire Ambition with a bloody thirst, 

 And keep the world a slaughter-house for man ! ! ! 



Reflections on the Decline of Science in 

 England, and on some of its Causes, by 

 Charles Babbage, Esq. 8t>o. Felloit/es. It is 

 with feelings of no ordinary pride that we 

 have perused this volume. Deservedly great 

 as is the sensation it has produced, by bring, 

 ing into one point of view the various abuses 

 which have tarnished the scientific character 

 of England, find entirely destroyed that of 

 the Royal Society, yet our readers will find 

 that in this journal we have anticipated what- 

 ever Mr. Babbage has brought forward, from 

 those most questionable pendulum experi- 

 ments of Captain Sabine, which we were the 

 first to denounce, down to that practical 

 satire on the Royal, the Medico-Botanical So- 

 ciety. The novel way of reducing the Green- 

 wich observations, videlicet, to pasteboard 

 the jobbing in the medals, in the appoint- 

 ments to the Board of Longitude, in the ad- 

 viserships to the Admiralty, must be familiar 

 to the readers of our magazine ; and if we 

 have occasionally endeavoured to extract 

 amusement from some proceedings at Cam- 

 bridge, the justly high terms in which Mr. 

 Babbage speaks of that university strictly 

 convey our own sentiments, and no one can 

 entertain a more exalted opinion than our- 

 selves of the eminent professor, one of whose 

 papers appeared in these pages, so whimsi- 

 cally versified by an ingenious correspondent. 



We are not surprised at the style in which 

 this book is written ; it is the language of a 

 philosopher, indignant at the quackeries of 

 those who 1 have assumed to disgrace the 

 name ; yet exposure would have sufficed for 

 the ends of justice ; the affairs are too gross, 

 disgusting and palpable. The following is 

 a specimen of the v/ork. 



"Surely, if knowledge is valuable, it cr.n never 

 be good policy, in a country far wealthier then 

 Tuscany, to allow a genius like Mr. Dalton's to be 

 employed in the drudgery of elementary instruc- 

 tion. I utter these sentiments from no feelings of 

 private friendship to that estimable philosopher, to 

 whom it is my regret to be almost unknown, and 

 whose modest and retiring merit, I may, perhaps, 

 have the misfortune to offend by these remarks. 

 But Mr. Dalton was of no party; had he ever 

 moved in that vortex, which has brought discredit, 

 and almost ruin, on the Royal Society of England ; 

 had he taken part with those who vote to each 

 other medals ; and, affecting to be tired of the fa- 

 tigues of office, make to each other requisitions to re- 

 tain places they would be most reluctant to quit ; his 

 great and splendid discovery would long since have 



been represented to Government. Expectant me- 

 diocrity would have urged on its claims to remune- 

 ration, and those who covered their selfish purposes 

 with the cloak of science, would have hastened to 

 shelter themselves in the mantle of his glory. But 

 the philosopher may find consolation for the tardy 

 approbation of that Society in the applause of 

 Europe. If he was insulted by their medal, he 

 escaped the pain of seeing his name connected with 

 their proceedings.''--! 1 . 20. 



As Mr. Babbage has withheld the names 

 of the culprits, we shall treat them 3vith the 

 same forbearance. In another place we find 

 It is the custom to attach certain letters to the 

 names of those who belong to different societies, 

 and these marks of ownership are by many con- 

 sidered the only valuable part of their purchase on 

 entry. The following is a list of some of these 

 societies. The second column gives the ready- 

 money prices of the tail pieces indicated in the 

 third. (We omit the table.) Thus, those who are 

 ambitious of scientific distinction may, according 

 to their fancy, render their name a kind of comet, 

 carrying with it a tail of upwards of forty letters, 

 at the average cost of 10?. 9s. 9$d. per letter."? 

 42. 



Cometary tails, indeed.! much more like 

 pig-tails. A Chinaman is disgraced when 

 his tail is cut off, an Englishman when he 

 retains it. Concerning the Medico-Botanical 

 Society, we find 



" It would be at once a judicious and a dignified 

 course, if those lovers of science, who have been 

 so grievously deceived in this Society, were to en- 

 rol upon the latest pages of its history its highest 

 claim to public approbation, and, by signing its dis- 

 solution, offer the only atonement in their power to 

 the insulted science of their country. As with a 

 singular inversion of principle, the Society contrived 

 to render expulsion the highest honour it could 

 confer ; so it remains for it to exemplify, in suicide, 

 the sublimest virtue of which it is capable." P. 49. 



The irony of the following passage is 

 unique. 



Doubtless, thepresiclent.in making thatappoint- 

 ment, (of Mr. Brande, a chemist, we believe, to the 

 secretaryship of the Royal Society,) looked most an- 

 xiously over the list of the Royal Society. He, doubt- 

 less, knew that the Academies of Sweden, of Den- 

 mark, of Scotland, of Russia, of Hanover, and of 

 France, derived honour from the discoveries of their 

 secretaries ; that they prided themselves in the names 

 of Berzelius, of Oersted, of Brewster, of Encke, of 

 Gauss, and of Cuvier. Doubtless the president 

 must have been ambitious that England should con- 

 tribute to this galaxy of glory, that the Royal So- 

 ciety should restore the lost Pleiad * to the admiring 

 science of Europe. But he could discover no kindred 

 name among the ranks of his supporters, and forgot, 

 for a moment, the interest of the Society in an 

 amiable consideration for the feelings of his sur- 

 rounding friends. For had the president chosen a 

 brighter star, the lustre of his other officers might 

 have been overpowered by its splendour ; but, re- 

 lieved from the pain of such a contrast, he may still 

 retain the hope, that, by their united brightness, 

 these suns of his little system shall yet afford suffi- 

 cient light to be together visible to distant nations, 

 as a faint nebula in the obscure horizon of English 

 science." P. 97- 



* " Pleiades, an assemblage of seven stars in the 

 neck of the constellation Taurus. There are now 

 only six of them visible to the naked eye.'' Button's 

 Dictionary Art. Pleiades. 



