Decline of Science in England. 351 



pre-eminently true of England, and that, if lie wishes to see his 

 own description justified or even caricatured, he will succeed 

 only by submitting some important invention to the British 

 government. As an anonymous writer, he need not have scrup- 

 led to give us a few of the exempla ocliosa to which he alludes; 

 but, however, numerous they might have been, we should have 

 neutralized them by counter statements of the most striking 

 kind. When Dr Anderson, disgusted at home, carried his 

 flying artillery to the French government — when Fresnel suc- 

 cessfully submitted his improvements in light-houses to the 

 French board, — when Aldini, introduced his incombustible 

 dresses — when Humboldt persuaded the Russian government 

 to erect physical observatories throughout the Empire, — 

 when Hansteen received from the Storthing of Norway a large 

 sum for examining the magnetic curves in Siberia, — when 

 the Emperor of Austria, the King of Russia, and the King of 

 Saxony invited to the honours of their capitals, the scientific 

 associations of Germany, — was there in these acts any appear- 

 ance of official insolence to genius and talents ? We call upon 

 our author to vindicate his allegation by facts, and we doubt 

 not it will be found that the cases referred to, were those of 

 troublesome speculators who abound in all countries. 



But not only are foreign sovereigns the liberal friends and 

 patrons of indigenous science, their liberality, especially that of 

 the Emperor of Russia, nobly extends itself to other countries ; 

 and while we are writing these lines, we have iearned the gra- 

 tifying fact, that his Imperial Majesty, has presented to George 

 Harvey, Esq. F. R. S. of Plymouth, through his Excellency 

 Prince Lieven, a magnificent diamond ring, as a mark of ap- 

 probation of Mr Harvey's investigations on ship-building, as 

 published in the article Ship-building in the Edinburgh En- 

 cyclopaedia. 



We come now to a painful part of our duty ; to notice the 

 calumnies against French philosophers and French science, which 

 the author has brought forward to neutralize the high admira- 

 tion which Mr Babbagc and the author of the article in the 

 Quarterly Review have expressed of the genius and institutions of 

 the French people. lie represents the w ' wealth and dignities" 

 which Napoleon heaped upon Laplace as " the price of shame 

 " and degradation ;" and he enumerates Lacepcdc, Monge, 



NEW BEEIE8, vol,, v. NO. IF. OCTOBER 1831. Z 



