236 Mary Sometville. 



correspondent of hers, but whose letters are generally too 

 exclusively mathematical for the general reader. My 

 mother had described the curious horse-races which are 

 held at Siena every three years, and other mediaeval cus- 

 toms still prevalent. 



FROM LORD BROUGHAM TO MRS. SOMERVILLE. 



COLE HILL, KENT, Sept. 28tk, ISiO. 



MY DEAR MRS. SOMERVILLE, 



I am much obliged to you for your kind letter 

 which let me know of your movements. I had not heard 



of them since I saw the Fergusons We have 



been here since parliament rose, as I am not yet at all 

 equal to going to Brougham. My health is now quite 

 restored ; but I shall not soon nor in all probability 

 ever recover the losses I have been afflicted with. I 

 passed the greater pprt of last winter in Provence, 

 expecting some relief from change of scene and from 

 the fine climate ; but I came back fully worse than when 

 I went. In fact, I did wrong in struggling at first, which 

 I did to be able to meet parliament in January last. If 

 I had 3'ielded at once, I would have been better. I hope 

 and trust they sent you a book I published two years 

 ago ; I mean the "Dissertations," of which one is on the 

 " Principia," and designed to try how far it ma} 7 be 

 /aught to persons having but a very moderate stock of 

 mathematics ; also, if possible, to keep alive the true 

 taste (as I reckon it) in mathematics, which modern 

 analysis has a little broken in upon. Assuming you to 

 have got the book, I must mention that there are some 



intolerable errors of the press left, such as 



Excuse my troubling you with these errata, and impute it 



