128 Notices of Books. [January, 
to the monotonous throb of the “mission-room” bell and the 
solemn howls of the harmonium in the house of a musical neigh- 
bour. 
Minds of a somewhat higher order remember the name of 
Babbage in connection with an unfinished calculating machine 
which, in due obedience to the modern gospel of success, they 
class with the attempts of visionaries to square the circle or find 
the philosopher’s stone. Now, that Babbage was not a success- 
ful man we admit. It is perfectly true, quoting from the work 
before us, that “ there was not a place which he ever sought 
that he gained. He aspired to the Professorship of Mathematics 
at the East India College at Harleyburgh, to Playfair’s chair at 
Edinburgh, to a seat at the Board of Longitude, to the Master- 
ship of the Mint, and to the office of Registrar-General of Births 
and Deaths, ana failed in all.” His magnum opus, the great ana- 
lytical engine, never was completed, But in the opinion of the 
numerous and eminent mathematicians and engineers who had 
examined the inventor’s plans, success, in the fullest sense of 
the word, was merely a question of the needful funds. The 
machine was intended to contain a hundred variables, each con- 
sisting of 25 figures ; it would calculate a thousand values (of 
e.g., a, b , c, d by the formula — 
p = pfa+b \ 
c aj 
print them, and reduce them to zero. “When the machine 
wanted a tabular number it would ring a bell and then stop itself. 
On this the attendant would look at a certain part of the machine 
and find that it wanted the logarithm of a given number, say of 
2303. He would then go to the drawer, take the required 
logarithm card, and place it on the machine. Upon this, the 
engine would first ascertain whether the assistant had or had not 
given it the correCt logarithm of the number : if so, it would use 
it, and continue its work. But if the engine found that the 
attendant had given it a wrong logarithm, it would ring a louder 
bell, and stop itself. On the attendant again examining the 
engine, he would observe the words wrong tabular number, 
and then discover that he had really given the wrong logarithm, 
and, of course, would have to replace it by the right one.” 
That such a conception should remain incomplete even after 
its possibility was demonstrated, is a disgrace to the age. 
“ There was not an invention connected with his name, and in 
mathematical mechanics he ranks among the foremost the world 
ever produced, which, in the opinion of the best disciplined minds 
of his day, he could not have perfected had sufficient pecuniary 
means been at his command. 
Among his literary productions we find honourable mention 
made of the “ Ninth Bridgewater Treatise.” His no less remark- 
able work, the “ Decline of Science in England,” has escaped 
