333 



ii. Dr. Thomas Thomson — a7id his " Answer." 



It is the practice of every vice, to assume the garb and name 

 of its neighbour virtue. Thus avarice becomes frugality ; chi- 

 canery, knowledge of the world ; violence of temper, warmth of 

 feeling; rudeness of manners, plain dealing ; envy and detrac- 

 tion, the love of truth and justice. We have been presented with 

 an amusing specimen of this masquerade, in Dr. Thomson's 

 pretended " Answer" *, to our Review of his System, published 

 in this Journal fifteen months ago ; and were we actuated by 

 personal hostility, we should have rejoiced at its obliquity and 

 intemperance. We apprehend that the misstatements and abuse 

 with which he has sullied the pages of Mr. Phillips's Journal, 

 are the signs of a desperate cause ; they are, at all events, ill 

 calculated to erase the impression which our Review has made 

 upon the public mind respecting the merits and accuracy of the 

 " System." 



In presenting our readers with a few additional remarks in 

 reply to Dr. Thomson's Answer, we shall not degrade either 

 ourselves, or our Journal, by imitating the coarseness of his 

 invective, nor shall we delay until we have availed ourselves 

 of the Regius Professor's obliging invitation to attend his lec- 

 tures at Glasgow — having already had the gratification of listen- 

 ing to a portion of one of his discourses at the Surry Institution, 

 near Blackfriar's Bridge, London. We shall, therefore, at once 

 proceed to the business before us ; and we pledge ourselves to 

 defend every statement, and corroborate every assertion of our 

 former review. 



In the first place we have accused Dr. Thomson of speaking 

 too favourably of himself, but we are sorry to observe from 

 his " Answer," that he has not profited by our advice ; and, 

 that he is forgetful of the old proverb " propria laus sordet" 

 of the truth of which he furnishes a most diverting example. 



Speaking, for instance, of his System he says, it is a work 

 " which has in some measure stamped the character of every 

 systematic treatise, both in Britain and America, and even 

 on the continent of Europe; and which has been sanctioned 

 by the almost unqualified approbation of the most eminent 

 chemists in Britain, France and Germany." Of his own indi- 

 vidual accomplishments he says in the same tone, " As I 

 have uniformly prided myself in the honesty, sincerity, and inde- 

 pendence of my character ; as I have been at considerable pains 

 to give credit to whom credit was due; as I have uniformly 

 both in my System, and in the Annals of Philosophy, while I 

 continued its editor, given the merit of every chemical fact to 



• AnnnU of Phil. April |8j3. 

 Vol. XIII. 2 A 



