CORRESPONDENCE, 1856-66. 293 



To Sir John Herschel. 



7 Camden Street, Oct. 9, 1857. 



MY DEAR SIR JOHN, . . . I am very glad to hear your son is 1857. 

 safe. You say nothing about yourself, so I hope there is nothing 

 to say. Subdivide yourself into any number of egos or ichs, but 

 take care you don't get the double identity, which sometimes 

 happens, in which a person is one person for a time ajid then 

 another. Did you ever read a novel called The Devil's Elixir ? If 

 not, try for it ab the circulating library. This Elixir has the effect 

 that if two persons drink thereof their identities get mixed up 

 in a very odd way. Each one becomes the other to a consider- 

 able extent. 



By the way, you and I may be cousins all this time without 

 knowing it. One of my mother's ancestors her mother's 

 mother, I think was a Pitt, belonging to a family which con- 

 sidered itself an elder branch of the Chatham family ; and I 

 think I remember some expressions of hers being quoted which 

 seemed to savour of thinking it very presumptuous in the 

 younger line to come out as prime ministers, &c. 



Multa renascenhir quce jam accidere. Among them is a fact 

 which I discovered a few days ago that T, A. De M.,have sailed 

 under our friend Beaufort's orders. He commanded the convoy 

 in which my father and mother brought me home to England in 

 1806, he being in the Woolwich frigate. I was then four months 

 old. So you see I was at the Cape long before you. 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



To Sir John Herschel. 



7 Camden Street, Feb. 7, 1858. 



MY DEAR SIR JOHN, King Cole (2nd edition) is nearly per- 1858. 

 feet. Carmina cumfumo is not idiomatic, and that is all. 1 



When did 1858 begin ? on what meridian ? An insidious 

 question, demanded in the interests of equinoctial time. Why, 

 1858 had as many beginnings as there are meridians. When did 

 Wednesday begin ? 



1 Speaking of a Latin translation of King Cole, which Sir John had 

 sent him. ED. 



