[ 149 ] 
“ Example of ‘PERSONAL ApusE,’ in a late Discussion.” 
From a Correspondent. 
1. “ The computations have been conducted by the assist- 
ance of Mr.Ivory’s most masterly investigations of the attractions 
ofspheroids. 2 Jan. 1820.”—Journ. R.I. 
2. ‘* Entertaining, as I unfeignedly do, the profoundest respect 
for the analytical talents of Mr. Ivory, and admitting most readily, 
that he has contributed, more than any person now living, to ad- 
vance the reputation of this country among our contemporaries 
abroad, with regard to abstract mathematics. 31 Dec. 1820.”— 
Journ. R. I. 
3. “1 have some concessions to make to Mr. Ivory, and the 
computations of such a mathematician as he is, are not to be 
hastily or lightly examined. 3 Nov. 1821.’’— Phil. Mag. 
4. “A mathematician of Mr. Ivory’s acknowledged celebrity 
and transcendent attainments. Dec. 1821.”—Journ. R. I. : 
5. To these passages may be added a fifth quotation, not 
wholly inapplicable to the merits of the present case. ‘‘ It seems, 
indeed, as if mathematical learning were the ewthanasia of phy- 
sical talent; and unless Great Britain can succeed in stemming 
the torrent, and checking the useless accumulation of weighty 
materials, the fabric of science will sink, in a few ages, under its 
own insupportable bulk. A sPLENDID EXAMPLE has already 
been displayed by the Author of the article Attraction in this 
Supplement: and, to do justice to our neighbours, it must be 
allowed that they have received the boon with due gratitude, and 
acknowledged it by merited applause: “all the analytical diffi- 
culties of the problem,” say Legendre and Delambre (Mém. Inst. 
1812) “ vanish at once before this method: and a theory, which 
before required the most abstruse analysis, may now be explained, 
in its whole extent, by considerations perfectly elementary.”’ It 
is, in fact, only when a subject is so simplified, that the investi- 
gation can be considered as complete, since we are never so sure 
that we understand the process of nature, as when we can trace 
at once in our minds all the steps by which that process is con- 
ducted.”’— Biography of Lagrange, Apr. 1821. ‘Suppl. Enc. 
Brit. 1822. V. 199. 
These passages, which, there is reason to think, are the pro- 
duction of the same pen, are the only personalities that I have 
been able to discover, relating to Mr. Ivory, in the writings of 
their author: the mentioning his opinions with levity, so far only 
as they are asserted to be unfounded, does not appear to me to 
_ constitute a personality; much less to deserve the epithet of 
personal abuse. 
London, 5 Jan. 1822. A.B. C.D. 
