238 PETER GUTHRIE TAIT 



A footnote states : 

 Thus paraphrased for us: 



Nature, bewildering in diversity, 



Of marvels Marvel most inscrutable, 



Like Proteus, altereth her shape and mould ; 



But Fate remaineth ever immovable, 



And, changeless in persistency, outwears 



The Time of men, the gods' Eternity. 



Recalling that Professor D'Arcy W. Thompson had once remarked to 

 me that he believed his father Professor D'Arcy Thompson of Galway had 

 supplied Tait with some Greek verses, I drew his attention to the lines, and 

 obtained the following reply of date June 4, 1908 : 



"Many thanks indeed for your letter of the 3ist May, which, with its enclosures, 

 interests me very much indeed. 



" I cannot of course absolutely testify that the verses are my father's, but everything 

 points that way : 



(1) I know that my father did some verses for The Unseen Universe, and, as 

 far as my recollection goes, they were on just such lines as these you send ; 



(2) The Greek is extremely like Euripides, the author whom my father told 

 me he had imitated ; 



(3) The English paraphrase strikes me as being exactly in my father's style. 



" My father certainly told me that Tait had asked him to make those verses for the 

 book, so that little piece of waggery of inserting them for the admiration of the reader 



and the mystification of the scholar was Tail's doing 



(Signed) D'ARCY W. THOMPSON." 



This is an example of the way in which Tait prevailed upon his friends to 

 help in adding interest to the pages of The Unseen. 



Robertson Smith, the eminent Semitic scholar and theologian, seems to 

 have given valuable hints throughout, as may be inferred from the following 

 letter written by Tait on June 5, 1875. 



My dear Smith, 



Macmillan gives me private information that in a few weeks a second 

 edition of the U. U. will be wanted. He deprecates any material change, partly on 

 its own merits, mainly on the inevitable delay it would involve. 



Now, while I still most strongly hold to your kind promise to (some day soon) 

 rewrite the first chapter for us, I think Mac. is right that there should be no material 

 change in the second edition especially as but few of the great critics have yet 

 spoken out, and we must not at once abandon our first essay as if afraid of what may 



