Decline of Science in England. 337 



" delight in extolling to the skies the scientific excellence of 

 " foreigners of every description.'" 



Overlooking the gross perversion of truth involved in the 

 expression that Mr Babbage and his friends have taken delight 

 in extolling foreigners to the skies, we shall have no difficulty 

 in explaining to an English reader, how men passionately at- 

 tached to their country and to its scientific honour, may yet 

 point out the defects of its institutions, and give a salutary 

 warning of the decline of its literature and science. When a 

 man embraces every opportunity of abusing the institutions of 

 his country, and evinces a pleasure in extolling the superiority 

 of foreigners, while he expresses no wish to reform these insti- 

 tutions, and to raise his countrymen in that scale in which he 

 considers them as holding a degraded place, it is not difficult 

 to determine the character, and appreciate the motives of such 

 a calumniator. The sharp-sighted public sooner or later 

 detect the fraud, and the intellectual felon, the robber of his 

 country's name, is pronounced guilty of acting under irritable 

 feelings, disappointed hopes, or personal animosity. 



Mr Faraday and his anonymous friend will, we are sure, 

 save us the trouble of proving that Sir H. Davy, Mr Babbage, 

 and Mr Herschel, &c. do not belong to this class of persons. 

 They have, on the contrary, shown themselves to be men jea- 

 lous of the honour of English science, and we could prove 

 from their writings, and those of their supporters, that they 

 have nobly vindicated the claims of English pre-eminence 

 whenever they were assailed by the unjust pretensions of fo- 

 reign authors. Sir H. Davy was upon this point extremely 

 sensitive, and Mr Faraday ought to have been aware from his 

 personal knowledge of that bright ornament of England, that 

 a philosopher may admit the decline of science in his own 

 country, while he at the same time exercises a morbid jealousy 

 of the pre-eminence of rival nations. It was, indeed, tins true 

 love of English science, this anxious desire to maintain its pre- 

 eminence, that led Sir 11. Davy to deplore its decay, and la- 

 ment the indifference which the aristocracy and the government 

 of England have exhibited in promoting our intellectual glory. 

 Mr Babbage, and Mr Herschel, and Sir I. South, have been 

 actuated by the same noble and patriotic motive. Tliey strug- 

 gled in vain to remove the delicts in OUT scientific institutions, 



