1822.] Sixth Edition of his System of Chemistry. 245 



take some credit to myself for the great pains which I took to 

 insert every novelty deserving of notice. To expect that i 

 should write anew the whole book was very unreasonable. It 

 would have been a task which I had no motive whatever for 

 performing. I undertook merely to insert every thing which I 

 considered as worthy of notice in its proper place. The repeti- 

 tions to which the Reviewer alludes are exceedingly trifling, and 

 do not altogether amount to 10 pages. The assertion that the 

 second volume is a repetition of the first is so palpably untrue, 

 that the Reviewer must have been aware of its inaccuracy when 

 he made it. The first volume consists of 580 pages ; the second 

 of 722. Of these, there are 556 pages which treat of sub- 

 stances not so much as mentioned, or even alluded to, in the 

 fiirst volume. Now were the remaining 166 pages printed ver- 

 batim from the first volume, it would not be true that the second 

 volume, or even the greater part of it, is a repetition of the first. 

 But the fact is, that not a single page of repetition is to be 

 found in the book. 



What the Reviewer has thought proper to call repetition is, I 

 conceive, attended with considerable advantage to the reader. 

 In the first volume I give in a few fines the essential characters 

 of the different mineral acids and bases ; while, in the second 

 volume, these bodies are treated of in detail, and their properties 

 and history given at length. I find great advantages resulting 

 from this plan of teaching the science ; and should be happy 

 to have an opportunity of compaiing the progress of some of 

 my own students with those of Mr. Brande. 



" We proceed to the second division of the first book of hi& 

 system, comprehending ponderable bodies, which are handled 

 in a very heavy style." — (Review, p. 140.) 



" By the aid of many italics, the Doctor tries in vain to give 

 emphasis to his favourite mode of writing, which, from its 

 extreme rarefaction of ideas, mioht be called the vacuous,'' — 

 (Ibid. p. 129.) 



*' The whole information contained in his four papers on the 

 specific gravities of the gases and the true weights of the atoms 

 might have been easily conveyed in one-twentieth of the com- 

 pass."— (Ibid, p. 125.) 



The want of discernment evinced in these attacks upon my 

 style occasioned some surprise at first. I may be very oftea 

 accused of great carelessness of style ; but never, unless I 

 deceive myself egregiously, either of want of energy or diffuse- 

 ness. Indeed the characteristic properties of my style are just 

 the opposite of diftuseness. I am remarkably concise, though I 

 hope always clear, and generally energetic. Nothing indeed can* 

 constitute a greater contrast than my mode of writing, and that 

 of Mr. Brande. If he be a good writer on scientific subjects, it 

 follows as a necessary consequence that I am a bad one. I 

 refer the reader to his History of Chemistry in the Supplement 



