lis Me/jli/ lo a Review in Brandes Journal of Science. 



hlioulfl be equally honoured with insertion in your Journal — and 

 to the justice of this claim you readily acceded*. 



In order to bring these circumstances more particularly to your 

 memory, it will be well to mention that the conversation above 

 referred to took place on the evening of the 1 4th of December 

 1820, at Somerset House, a short time before the meeting of the 

 Royal Society ; and that it was again repeated bv you, in a more 

 cursory, yet impressive manner, immediately after the Society had 

 adjourned, as we were both in the act of leaving the meeting room. 



Had the review been "severe," yet just, correct, and candid, 

 I should have preserved a becoming silence, and endeavoured to 

 profit by the admonitions bestowed on me, iiowever harshly j but 

 as it possesses none of the latter qualities, I can scarcely be ex- 

 pected to suffer it to pass unnoticed. 



When 1 state that the review is the reverse of being just, cor- 

 rect, and candid, I am advancing what, I trust, I shall fully prove 

 to yourself and the public ; and this circumstance induces me to 

 declare, in limine, that, although by designating that review as 

 " severe," you implicitly acknowledged that vou had read it; 

 yet, from my acquaintance with your character and urbanity of 

 manners, 1 am free to assume that you had not paid any very 

 particular attention to the structure of that article, and the as- 

 sertions it comprises; or it would never have appeared in your 

 Journal, to which I am proud in having been one of the earliest, 

 and certainly not the least zealous of its contributors. 



My observations, therefore, can, in no way whatever, apply to 

 you as the Editor of that Journal, except where it is explicitly so 

 stated ; but are directed to the writer, of whom the letter O stands 

 as the representative. 



To render my reply as perspicuous and as concise as the na- 

 ture of the subject will admit, 1 shall, whenever 1 have an op- 

 portunity, ado])t the form oi positive answer to the assertions of 

 the reviewer — rather than argumentative discussion, for which 

 I have neither the necessary talent, nor any very particular in- 

 clination. No answer or reply will be given, to which I am 

 not ])rcpared to apoend a proof in support of its meaning — this 

 being, in my opinion, the surest mode of conducting a defence. 



The circumstances which induced the reviewer to notice my 

 work are stnted by him to be these : 



!. " The first part of it (the work) affects scientific arrange- 

 jnent; and the sul)ject of which it treats was Jirsi brought be- 

 fore the British public, in this Journal." 



2. " We wish to point out an error or two into which the 

 Doctor has fallen." 



• The reader will have seen, fiom his reply to my letter given above, in 

 ■tvhat manner Mr. Brando has redeemed his implied pledge. 



3. " And 



