Mr. Babbage's Calculating Engines. 237 



heads. It also became necessary, from motives of prudence, 

 that the heavy expense incurred for this purpose should be spread 

 over a period of many years. This consideration naturally caused 

 a new source of anxiety and risk, arising from the uncertain 

 tenure of human life and of human faculties, — a reflection ever 

 present to distract and torment the mind, and itself calculated 

 to cause the fulfilment of its own forebodings. 



Amidst such distractions the author of the Analytical Engine 

 has steadily pursued his single purpose. The numberless mis- 

 representations of the facts connected with both Engines have 

 not induced him to withdraw his attention from the new Inven- 

 tion ; and the circumstance of his not having printed a descrip- 

 tion of either Engine has arisen entirely from his determination 

 never to employ his mind upon the description of those Machines 

 so long as a single difficulty remained which might limit the 

 power of the Analytical Engine. The drawings, however, and 

 the notations have been freely shown ; and the great principles 

 on which the Analytical Engine is founded have been explained 

 and discussed with some of the first philosophers of the present 

 day. Copies of the engravings were sent to the libraries of 

 several public institutions, and the effect of the publicity thus 

 given to the subject is fully proved by its having enabled a di- 

 stinguished Italian Geometer to draw up from these sources an 

 excellent account of that Engine*. 



Throughout the whole of these labours connected with the Ana- 

 lytical Engine, neither the Science, nor the Institutions, nor the 

 Government of his Country have ever afforded him the slightest 

 encouragement. When the Invention was noticed in the House 

 of Commons, one single voice t alone was raised in its favour. 



During nearly the whole of a period of upwards of twenty 

 years, Mr. Babbage had maintained, in his own house, and at his 

 own expense, an establishment for aiding him in carrying out 

 his views, and in making experiments, which most materially 

 assisted in improving the Difference Engine. When that work 

 was suspended he still continued his own inquiries, and having 

 discovered principles of far wider extent, he ultimately embodied 

 them in the Analytical Engine. 



The establishment necessary in the former part of this period 

 for the actual construction of the Difference Engine, and of the 

 extensive drawings which it demanded, as well as for the forma- 

 tion of those tools which were contrived to overcome the novel 



[* Of M. Menabrea's treatise, which appeared in the Bibliotheque Uni- 

 verselle de Geneve for October last, a translation is given in the 12th Part 

 of the Scientific Memoirs jutt published, with copious and valuable expla- 

 natory Notes by the Translator. — Ed.] 



t That of Mr. Hawes, Member for Lambeth. 



