324 MEMOIK OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1864. sovereign, which was never circulated. Tell me, I pray, when 

 you quarter-sovereigned did you know that Newton had quarter- 

 guinead, or was it an accidental coincidence ? 



Here I am, as usual in August, with one son in the house 

 and all the rest at Aldborough. My wife is mending, but has 

 been seriously ill. I hope I shall have a good account of your 

 section of the human race. 



You know Tristram Shandy who does not ? But you may 

 not know his views of proportion. He says his father was some- 

 times a gainer by a misfortune ; for if the pleasure of haranguing 

 about it was as ten, and the misfortune itself only as five, he 

 gained ' half in half,' and was as well off again as if the mis- 

 fortune had never happened. Cipher this out. I call it a 

 splendid bevue ; as good as the two last lines of the song about 

 the young man who poisoned his sweetheart in sheep's-head 

 broth, and was frightened to death with 



Where's that young maid 



What you did poison with my head ? 



at his bedside. 



Now all young men, both high and low, 



Take warning by this dismal go ! 



For if he'd never done nobody no wrong, 



He might have been here to have heard this song. 



Babbage's Act has passed, and he is a public benefactor. A 

 grinder went away from before my house at the first word. The 

 New Zealander shall sit on the remains of his doorstep to sketch 

 the fragments of a broken barrel-organ. ' si sic omnia ! ' 



Yours very truly, 



A. DE MOEGAN. 



To Mrs. Smyth. 



91 Adelaide Road, September 1, 1864. 



MY DEAR MRS. SMYTH, I see by the title-page that work is on 

 hand when was it not ? It is thirty-seven years since I became 

 personally aware of the fact that is, I have known the Admiral 

 nearly half his life, and yet there was a lot of it when I first 

 knew him ; he had retired from a life's work. 



I wanted to see how you swallowed the Pyramid. 1 I do not 



1 Prof. Piazzi Smyth's work on the Pyramids, published just be- 

 fore this time. S. E. De M. 



