298 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1858. gentleman, and was very glad to hear of it. You are now 

 ' discharged cured,' and are, I hope, meditating some proof of 

 violent health. A new edition of the Differences would be a very 

 pretty step in the proof. 



Did I send you this riddle ? the answer is in itself a riddle. 

 If a comet were to take a much more elongated orbit, and the 

 King of Naples were to prohibit the importation of malt liquor 

 into his capital, in what particulars would two empty heads 

 differ ? Answer overleaf. 



Kind regards to all your circle. 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



Answer : The comet would have double eccentricity, and the 

 King of Naples would not. 

 What can it mean ? 



To Sir John Herschel. 



7 Camden Street, N.W., Jan. 1, 1859. 



1859. MY DEAR SIR JOHN, Many thanks for your dates. I want 

 one more thing Who was Peacock's father? I have before 

 me a book by a clergyman of the name, whom I suspect to be 

 the one Rev. Thos. Peacock, author of The Practical Measurer 

 and of Walkingame's Arithmetic Modernised. 



I am very completely set up by your dates. The Prolocutor 

 of Convocation is, in fact, the speaker of the Lower House ; for the 

 clergy have their higher House, made of bishops, and their 

 lower House, made of dignitaries and proctors, so called, elected 

 by the lower clergy ; and they all have a hankering to be what 

 they once were, when they persecuted books as heretical, and 

 excommunicated the writers, and kept the pot boiling to the 

 wonderment and amusement of men and angels. And this was 

 called synodical action, but at last the State voted it torn-nodical, 

 and put it down. In our own day it has been revived to the 

 extent of allowing a day or two of talk, and appointment of com- 

 mittees to organise talk for next time ; but no measures have 

 been allowed to pass. And Peacock, as prolocutor, was, I 

 understand, very useful as a king of order and a stifler of pranks, 

 he being himself favourable to the revival of synodical action on 

 the principle of all the clergy being as discreet as himself, a 

 theory which beats out of the field Homoeopathy, Mesmerism, 

 Table-turning, Parliamentary Reform, and Perpetual Motion. 



