SIR JAMES SOUTH. 63 



opinions on that question, &c. On Mr. Airy's declining 1834. 

 further correspondence till assured that no disrespect was 

 meant, Sir James ( waited on a military officer of high sir James 

 rank in her Majesty's service,' who, however, either refused 

 to accept the office offered to him, or quietly stopped the 

 aggression. Sir James afterwards published the whole 

 account as an advertisement in the Times of Nov. 29, 

 1838, in an attack upon the Admiralty. But all persons 

 who had taken part with the prosecutors in the arbitra- 

 tion, or who had expressed an opinion contrary to that of 

 Sir James, were held by him as enemies. Mr. De Morgan, * 

 as the intimate friend of Mr. Sheepshanks, and honorary 

 secretary of the Astronomical Society, was one of these. 



Meeting him one day at the rooms of Lieut. Stratford, 

 then assistant secretary, Sir James, in a loud voice, asked 

 the latter to show him the time when and recommenda- 

 tion on which Mr. De Morgan had been elected a Fellow 

 of the R.A.S., and added something about ' those gentle- 

 men ignorami' by whom the election had been made. 

 Mr. De Morgan took no notice of this, but afterwards 

 addressed a temperate note to the speaker, saying that it 

 had appeared to him that Sir James South asking in his 

 presence for the time, &c., when he became a member of 

 the Society was not in accordance with the sort of 

 courtesy which parties who wish to behave distantly 

 towards each other usually observe when they meet in 

 private. He asked whether this was to be imputed to 

 f orgetfulness, or to a desire to convey the impression that 

 Sir James had no wish to practise towards himself that 

 negative courtesy with which a stranger is usually treated. 

 He begged for an answer, that he might know how to 

 behave towards Sir James in case they should meet again, 

 ' since, in any case,' he says, ( I should not consider such 

 a breach of etiquette worth any further consideration.' 



Sir James South's answer is curious. It ends with 

 ( As to how you regulate your demeanour towards myself 

 if we should happen to meet again, that is a point which, 



