LETTER FROM MRS. HUMPHREYS. 289 



The Essays on Musical Temperament to which 

 he refers were written by Professor A. M. Fisher. 

 Mr. Silliman succeeded in sustaining the enterprise 

 without suffering the Journal to become a merely 

 popular magazine. 



FROM DR. ROBERT HARE. 



July 28, 1819. 



I AM grieved to hear the pecuniary result of 



your publication is so unfavorable. In our city the inter- 

 est in favor of our own journals is very strong. I have 

 already hinted this to you as operating against the giving 

 of communications abroad, and of course it will operate 

 against subscriptions. There are few in our country who 

 take interest in the profounder branches of knowledge. I 

 doubt if there be a dozen men on the Continent who would 

 peruse some of the essays on musical temperament in your 

 Journal. I was told in New York that many said they 

 could not understand my memoir, who considered their 

 standing such as to feel as if this were an imputation 

 against me rather than themselves. I could not write it 

 for those who are so ignorant, without making it too prolix 

 and commonplace for adepts. There is our difficulty, 

 we cannot write anything for the scientific few which will 

 be agreeable to the ignorant many 



Among the letters of condolence which he re- 

 ceived on the occasion of the death of his son, was 

 one from Mrs. Humphreys, the widow of Colonel 

 Humphreys. 



FROM MRS. HUMPHREYS. 



BOSTON, October 6, 1819. 



I CONDOLE with you most truly and sincerely 



on the loss of your darling child. The all-consoling reflec- 

 tion, that you describe with so much feeling, is so just and 



VOL. I. 19 



