"EDINBURGH REVIEW." 



279 



worth expressed his regret that 1 who had laid a foundation for a 



neither of those great masters of 

 romance appeared to have been 

 surrounded with any due marks of 

 respect in the close of life. I hap- 

 pened to observe that Cervantes, 

 on his last journey to Madrid, met 

 with an incident which seemed to 

 have given him no common satis- 

 faction. Sir Walter did not re- 

 member the passage, and desired 

 me to find it out in the Life -by 

 Pellicer, which was at hand, and 

 translate it. I did so, and he lis- 

 tened with lively though pensive 

 interest. Our friend Allan, the 

 historical painter, had also come 

 out that day from Edinburgh, and 

 he lately told r^e, that he remem- 

 bers nothing he ever saw with so 

 much sad pleasure as the attitudes 

 and aspect of Scott and Words- 

 worth as the story went on. Mr. 

 Wordsworth was at that time, I 

 should notice though indeed his 

 noble stanzas tell it in but a 

 feeble state of general health. He 

 was, moreover, suffering so much 

 from some malady in his eyes, that 

 he wore a deep green shade over 

 them. Thus he sat between Sir 

 Walter and his daughter ; ausit 

 omen but it was no wonder that 

 Allan thought as much of Milton 

 as of Cervantes, The anecdote of 

 the young student's raptures on 

 discovering that he had been rid- 

 ing all day with the author of Don 

 . -ote, is introduced in the pre- 

 face to Count Robert, and Castle 

 Danyerous, which (for I may not 

 return to the subject) came out 

 at the close of November in four 

 volumes, as the Fourth Series of 

 Talcs of My Landlord. (Lockhart.) 



A ROYAL PROBLEM IN SCIENCE. 



When King Charles II. dined 

 with the members on the occasion 

 of constituting them a Royal So- 

 ciety, towards th close of the even- 

 ing he expressed his satisfaction .V 

 being the first English monarch 



society which proposed that their 

 whole studies should be directed to 

 the investigation of the arcana of 

 nature, and added, with that pecu- 

 liar gravity of countenance he 

 usually wore on such occasions, 

 that among such learned men he 

 now hoped for a solution to a 

 question which had long puzzled 

 him. The case he thus stated : 

 Suppose two pails of water were 

 fixed in two different scales that 

 were equally poised, and which 

 weighed equally alike, and two live 

 bream, or small fish, were put into 

 either of these pails ; he wanted to 

 know the reason why that pail, 

 with such addition, should not weigh 

 more than the other pail which was 

 against it. Every one was ready 

 to set at quiet the royal curiosity ; 

 but it appeared that every one was 

 giving a different opinion. One at 

 length offered so ridiculous a solu- 

 tion, that another of the members 

 could not refrain from a loud laugh; 

 when the king, turning to him, in- 

 sisted that he should give his sen- 

 timents as well as the rest. This 

 he did without hesitation ; and 

 told his majesty, in plain terms, 

 that he denied the fact ; on which 

 the king, in high mirth, exclaimed : 

 u Odds fish, brother, you are in the 

 right !" The jest was not ill de- 

 signed. The story is often useful 

 to cool the enthusiasm of the 

 scientific visionary, who is apt to 

 account for what never existed. 



" EDINBURGH REVIEW." 



Sir Walter Scott ascribes- the 

 great success of this periodical to 

 two circumstances : that it was 

 above the influence of the pufiing 

 booksellers, and that thereconiju-nsi) 

 per sheet was not only liberal in 

 itself, but was actually forced on 

 all contributors, however high their 

 rank and fortune, by the editor, 

 whose saying was. that Cz;ir Peter, 

 when working in the trenches, ro- 



