482 NOTES. 



shall we again say of the same critic as broadly asserting, 

 that no one ever in Mr. Cavendish's lifetime brought it 

 forward, when Professor Robison in the Encyclopaedia, 

 Dr. John Thomson in his celebated Translation of Four- 

 croy, Dr. Thomas Thomson and Mr. Murray, each in their 

 ' Elements of Chemistry,' and Mr. W. Nicholson in both his 

 ' Dictionary' and his other works, all state Mr. Watt's claim 

 in the very words in which M. Arago and myself now have 

 urged it, nay, Sir C. Blagden states it in his letter to Crell, 

 and all these long and long before Mr. Cavendish's death,* 

 to say nothing of others, as Dr. Thomson, in his * History 

 of the Royal Society,' published since ? As to Mr. Vernon 

 Harcourt's appealing boldly to Dr. Henry's authority, and 

 preserving a profound silence when I quoted his letter, 

 expressly negativing that confident statement,! say nothing; 

 because it is a matter not easily handled, consistently with 

 the respect and esteem in which I have ever held my rever- 

 end friend. 



* Professor Robison in 1797; the Translation of Fourcroy earlier. 



