1818.J Lord Stanhope. 85 



subtraction, multiplication, and division. Although there is 

 reason to believe that the apparatus which he formed was 

 strictly of his own invention, yet it must be observed that he 

 was not original in his idea of forming an arithmetical machine, 

 and that the general principle of them must probably be nearly 

 the same. It has been asserted, upon grave authority, that his 

 Lordship conceived the possibility of forming a reasoning ma- 

 chine, by which the results of certain combinations of ideas, or 

 of elementary propositions, might be ascertained with as much 

 ease and accuracy as those of figures. But it is scarcely neces- 

 sary to observe that, independent of other difficulties, no mecha- 

 nical process for reasoning can ever be employed until mankind 

 have agreed upon certain general principles as decidedly as upon 

 the value of certain numbers, and until all doubt has been 

 removed respecting the import of words, or the combinations of 

 them. A machine for resolving political queries would give 

 very different answers, according as it was constructed under the 

 superintendance of an advocate for reform, or an admirer of the 

 infallible wisdom of our ancestors. Lord Stanhope is well known 

 to have suggested some important improvements in the construc- 

 tion of the printing press, and to have been an early and active 

 patron of the stereotype method of printing. He also wrote a 

 scientific and ingenious essay on the method of tuning instru- 

 ments ; and invented a new system, which is considered as 

 founded upon correet principles. 



It is much to be lamented that, while Lord Stanhope was thus 

 devoting his time and fortune to objects of real or supposed 

 utility, and appeared to be guided by the purest philanthropy 

 and the most honourable principles, either his natural disposi- 

 tion, or the circumstances of his life, produced a state of mind 

 and conduct which deprived him of the endearments of domestic 

 life, and even, in a considerable degree, of the consolations of 

 friendship. His excessive zeal for politics, and the earnestness 

 and good faith with which he embraced his own doctrines, seem 

 to have rendered him incapable of supposing that those could be 

 actuated by honourable motives who differed from him ; and as 

 it happened, unfortunately, that he was very nearly related to 

 the family of Mr. Pitt, it led to a domestic schism, which even- 

 tually ended in the separation and estrangement of his own 

 children. It appears, indeed, that Lord Stanhope possessed but 

 a very small share, if any, of those amiable qualities which so 

 essentially contribute to the real happiness of life, and which are 

 poorly compensated by the more splendid endowments of learn- 

 ing or science, and cannot be superseded even by honour and 

 integrity. Lord Stanhope died in December, 1816, in the 64th 

 year of his age, exhibiting, in the last scene of his life, an 

 unusual degree of philosophical resignation. He has left 

 behind him a character which demands our respect, and which 

 will probably be more highly estimated by posterity than it was 

 by his contemporaries. The man of candour wili regret that 



