70 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1836. filling it, either for a time or permanently, was greater 

 tlian it would have been at another season of the year, 

 when the authorities would have been in London. 

 torafeunto ^ r> ^ e Morgan &!* tne great emergency of the case, 

 University and immediately offered to supply the want until the 

 Christmas following. Only one who, like himself, had 

 filled the chair before, could have taken it on so short a 

 notice, and I am certain that in acting on his first impulse 

 he consulted the needs of the Institution, without any 

 thought of the chances of a permanent return. But, once 

 installed in his old place, it was foreseen by all his friends 

 that an effort would be made to keep him there ; and he 

 judged, from the changes which had been made in the 

 management, that his former objections to holding office 

 in the College would not recur. An intimation soon came 

 that the offer would be made, unless it should be distinctly 

 understood that it would be rejected. His thoughts on 

 this occasion were set forth in a letter to his friend Sir 

 Harris Nicolas, by whose opinion as a lawyer he deter- 

 mined to abide. 



Letter to ^ y DEAE g IR H ARRTS) i w iu no t make any apology for asking 



Nicolas. of your friendship to consider the following case, and to give me 

 your advice ; firstly, because I believe you will willingly give me 

 your opinion ; and secondly, because I do not even make you run 

 the risk of incurring the ordinary odium which unfortunate 

 advisers are sure to meet with if they do not turn out to be 

 right. For I do not want you to advise me what is right or 

 what is wrong, or what is safe or what is unsafe ; but I only 

 want to ascertain the effect upon the mind of an unprejudiced 

 person produced by the following account, without reference to 

 the question whether such effect could or could not be made the 

 basis of safe and honourable rule of action. 



The London University opened in 1828, and I was one of the 

 Professors. The tenure of the Professorships amounted to this, 

 that they were removable by the Council with or without reason 

 assigned, having right of appeal against such dismissal to the 

 Court of Proprietors ; a body, as it afterwards turned out, not 

 without materials for agitation, but the numerical strength of 

 which could always be swayed by the Council, partly owing to 



