Second Edition of the Commerciiini Epistolicum. 447 



improper even if it were not material. Those liowever who are 

 acquainted with tlie bibliographical habits of" the beginning of 

 the last century, will not hastily impute wilful unfairness even 

 to such additions and suppressions as some of those I shall 

 have to describe. 



Various circumstances not necessary to recount, and know- 

 ledge of those bibliographical habits among them, made nie 

 think it desirable to compare the second edition of the Com- 

 viercium Epistolicum with the first. The latter is extremely 

 scarce, the copy which belonged to Cavendish being, I believe, 

 the only one brought to the hammer for many years : the 

 former is comparatively common. Having borrowed a copy 

 of the first edition from the library of the Royal Society, I 

 made a close collation of the two editions, and found, as I 

 thought likely, that several additions, upwards of twent}' in 

 number, had been made, some of them important. I drew 

 up an account of these, and transmitted it to the Royal 

 Society, by which I was informed, after the usual interval, 

 that it was not intended to print the communication. One of 

 my reasons for sending it to the Royal Society was the obvious 

 one, namely, that the memory of Leibnitz has a peculiar claim 

 upon that body for reparation of many wrongs. One of them, 

 as I now make known, I believe for the first time, was the 

 falsification of a record in a matter affecting his character, 

 done under the name of the Society. I hold that the Royal 

 Society of this day is the same scientific corporation which 

 existed more than a century ago, deriving honour from the 

 recollections of its former history, and therefore morally liable 

 to make amends for former errors. Within about eighteen 

 months of each other I presented two papers; the first in- 

 tended to protect the memory of Newton against an imputa- 

 tion which, from oversight of historians, might have been cast, 

 but was not, and incidentally to clear the Royal Society itself 

 from the charge of packing a jury : the second intended to 

 point out and repair a small portion of the wrong which actu- 

 ally was done under the name of the Society to Leibnitz. The 

 first was printed, the second was archived. It is then the duty 

 and pleasure of the Society to guard the fame of Newton, not 

 only from what has been, but what might be, said against it; 

 but it is affirmed to be either not its duty or not its pleasure 

 to repair the effect of falsifications made in a publication issued 

 under its name, when the sufferer, if any, must be Leibnitz. 



Having presented that second paper (which, after the first, 

 I could not but do, seeing that to liave offered it elsewhere 

 would have looked like an assumption that the Society would 

 act as it lias done), I cannot omit notice of the fact ; nor, 



