To which the Doctor replies. V

With respect to the system of Mohs, which has been adopted by Jameson in his last edition, I must confess myself an incompetent judge, because I do not understand it. I have perused Mohs little treatise on the Characters of the Classes, Or

ders, Genera, and Species, a copy of which the author did me the honour to present me I have likewise read the account of the -method published in the Edinburgh Journal but neither of these accounts puts it in my power to understand the nature of the arrangement. Mr Jameson's last edition is a cypher without a key. Under these circumstances, I thought myself obliged to omit my references to Jameson's System. I could not refer to the old edition after the author had published a new one; and I could not refer to the new edition, because I did not understand it. Thus circumstanced, I thought the best thing I could do was to refer to Hoffman's Minera logy, instead of Jameson's. It contains the Wernerian descriptions in the very words of Werner; and is the original from which most of Jameson's descriptions are taken," The Doctor was certainly most completely in the right in not attempting to explain what he did not understand. But we venture to question, whether the festina lente to which he himself appeals, might not have put him in -possession of the knowledge which he very sincerely, honestly, and independently acknowledges that he wanted. Jou Indeed, we can assure the Doctor, that if he had taken due pains to understand the Natural History method of mineralogy, as it is given by Jameson in his last edition, he would have found that it is not a cypher without a key that, on the contrary, the principles of classification are there unfold ed, shortly indeed, but with sufficient clearness for all the purposes which the author had in view, and that the species, subspecies, and fluids, are arranged as in the former edition.

די

the Doctor's Chemistry, it can be a matter of no moment to the Professor, considering the elevation on which he now stands, whether Dr Thomson chooses to put his name or that of Haffman at the bottom of his page, that it is doubtless a little e curious that Dr Thomson should not only prefer a foreign author, whose work can be consulted by but a few readers in this country, to one at least equally entitled to credit, and who, by the Doctor's own confession, now stands at the head of the systematic writers on Mineralogy in Britain; but that, to use the words of the reviewer, while "his first chapter, On the Description of Minerals, is copied from Jameson's Treatise on the External Characters, he has thought fit to erase the Professor's name as the authority for the details of a chapter which is copied from him, and that the only observable alteration in his present article on mineralogy is the erasure of Professor Jameson's name wherever it formerly occurred."

All this has happened, no doubt, from the honesty, sincerity, and inde pendence of Dr Thomson's character. We only mean to hint, that, in our opinion, it is a pity that, in the present instance, these excellent and most manly qualities had not found a better opportunity of displaying themselves.

We have thus passed rapidly over all the charges brought against the Doetor. But the great merit of the pamph let is the strong, and, we believe, just light in which it places the perfect satisfaction with which the Doctor reposes on the pillow of his own merits, and the more than profound contempt with which he regards any one who differs from him. The whole work is sprinkled with instances of both qualities. We will select a few, expressive, in the first place, of the Doctor's opinion of himself.

"But when Mr Brande

arraign my character as thinks proper

lished books which cannot be understood, would thank us for vindicating them from such a charge. Their chaTracters, both as honourable men and -as successful teachers, are far too high to be affected by any such sneer; and we believe they are incapable of treat ing the imputation of Dr Thomson with any other feeling than that of dignified disregard.

As to the leaving out of Professor Jameson's name in the last edition of

tinued its Editor, given the merit of every chemical fact to the original discoverer of it, as far as my knowledge of the subject enabled me to go; as I am not conscious of any wilful misrepresentation or twisting of facts to serve any particular purpose; should consider myself as guilty of a kind of falo de se, if I were not to step forward I owe it likewise in the present case in my own vindication. to the University of Glashave the honour to belong, gow, to and to his Majesty, who bestowed on me the Professorship which I fill, without any solicitation on my part, to shew the world that neither my abilities, my knowledge, my industry, nor my character, render me unworthy of that situation, or of the kind and munificent manner in which it was be stowed on me.

We have already quoted what he says of his style. Respecting his accuracy as an experimenter, he thus speaks, page 9:

All these experiments were made with a degree of care and attention, which I confidently affirm has never been surpassed."

And again, page 13:

"I am not willing to abandon the character for precision, which I have long en. joyed, though the Reviewer has thought proper to call it in question on the contrary, I flatter myself that I possess it in no common degree."

Yet more in the same style at page

27:

"I do not see any reason why I should be ashamed of my experiments. Compared with the preceding statements of Lavoisier, Davy, and Rose, they are exceedingly accurate."

Still another sample, page 36:

"This observation from an individual, who, so far as is known to the public, never took the specific gravity of a gas in his life, and directed against me, who have determined the specific gravity of more than 20 gases, with a degree of care and accuracy seldom equalled, and never surpassed, had surely been better spared."

We give but one instance more, page 41:

"The Reviewer's remarks about the quantity of muriatic gas absorbed by water, are as usual very witty; but the wit does not affect me. I have given the result of my experiments. Let him repeat them, and shew them to be inaccurate, and then sneer away and welcome. Till then, I shall only say, that it is easier to sneer than to experiment."

Of his own fairness in controversy, he thus speaks, page 29:

My conduct during the whole of this discussion has been, I think, just what it ought to have been."

These are specimens of the Doctor's opinion of himself; the following shew how he thinks and speaks of his opponents:

Pisani ↑ Tow in Page 21.What answer can be given to this impudent assortion ???

Page 25. But I must now draw the reader's attention to another particular, because it shews that this malignant writer hood of his statements, and that he drew was conscious of the inaccuracy and falsethem up with no other view than to make together the most monstrous and inconsisout the appearance of a case, by jumbling

tent falsehoods."

Page 30. The most consummate petulance, accompanied as it always is with the most woful ignorance, characterizes every one of the reviewer's observations."

Page 31. The reviewer's observations respecting expansion, shew merely, that he has not considered the mechanism of expansion, and that ignorance of a subject does not deter him from writing on it."

Page 36. By this time, I dare say, the reviewer is ashamed of what he has written on this subject, and would willingly barter nine-tenths of his wit for onetenth of my precision."

Page 36" The reviewer has misstated my reasoning in the Annals; but it is not worth while to put him right. If Mr Brande chooses to persist in his opinion, in the face of common sense, I have nothing to say to the contrary.'

Page 39.---The sneer against me for not adopting Mr Donovan's estimate of the composition of the mercurial oxides, is quite misplaced."

Page 39." The sneers at my account of ammonia could not have come from any writer of the smallest candour."

Page 39. "The sneer about lampic acid had better have been omitted."

Page 39. "I do not believe, that in the whole history of chemistry, any thing can be pointed out more uncandid or unjust, than the reviewer's remarks upon my paper on oxalic acid."

Page 40. "The reviewer's observations on my analysis of chloride of lime are so ridiculously absurd, that it would be waste of time to make a serious answer to them.

I would advise him to try a few experiments. They would cure his petulance, and give him some information on a subject about which he obviously knows nothing."

Now, after so many irresistible proofs of the Doctor's perfect satisfaction with himself, and of his utter disregard of everybody else, we cannot well, see what should have induced him to write his pamphlet at all. But he says, in a passage we have already quoted, that

it was to shew the world that he did not mean to put hands to himself to prove to the College of Glasgow, that he will bear no rebuke without retaliation and, lastly, to convince the King that he is every way worthy of all the honours and emoluments he has received from his Majesty. But even these reasons seem to us insufficient: for, most assuredly, no man who is so perfectly at peace with himself, ever did, or ever will, become a felo de se.

Since the above was written, we have seen Brande's Reply to Thomson's Answer. Journal of Science, No. xxvi. p. 333-353. It is, as usual with that critic, flippant, minute, and impertinent. Of its spirit we shall easily satisfy our readers, by giving its analysis from the Index, p. 454." Thomson's (Dr) System of Chemistry, and his Reply to a review of it in this Journal Specimens of the Doctor's inaccurate language opinions of foreign chemists on his system-specimens of his book-making repetitions of his inconsistencies of his critical chicanery exposure of his errors-his effrontery." Nothing can be more unphilosophical, we were going to say more ungentlemanlike, than criticism so conducted; but bad as it is, what will our readers think when we tell them that one of the "specimens of the Doctor's inaccurate language" brought forward, p. 335, is an apology which Thomson was obliged to dictate, to avoid an action in our Jury Court, at the suit of Allan the Banker? The contents of that apology do not, in any degree, bear on the merits of Mr Brande's critique on Dr Thomson's Chemistry,-it does not at all illustrate or advance any part of the argument, and is obviously inserted for the low purpose of irritating and annoying the Doctor by every weapon, fair or unfair, on which his antagonist can lay his hand. We do not, in the course of our critical reading, remember so degrading, or so disingenuous a piece of utter meanness. Not being desirous of saturating our

readers with chemistry, we shall not make any addition to the remarks we have offered already, and therefore decline meddling any more with the controversy. But as Brande has thought fit to make one statement, which we happen to know to be decidedly false, we deem it only fair to relieve the Doctor from the imputation cast on him in it.

"We (i. e. Brande or Ure) had said in the Review, 'We are at a loss to learn why a new edition has come forth; it was not spontaneously called for, and nothing but a decidedly puperior work should have been tendered to the public.' The Doctor makes answer: The new Edition, I presume, was printed because the old had been sold. I am not aware that booksellers proceed in any other way.' Now, the public should be informed, that during the Session immediately preceding the appearance of his sixth edition, his fifth, of 1817, was currently rattled off at the Edinburgh book auctions."-P. 327.

*

Now the work was out of print for a year before the sixth edition (which was incessantly called for) was published; and we beg, moreover, to add, that the information with which Mr Brande thinks proper to oblige the public respecting the "rattling off," is altogether false. Not a single copy of Dr Thomson's book was disposed of by the hammer of the auctioneer. This we know, and we shall let our readers form their own opinion of Mr Brande's gentleman-like accuracy.

III. I commence with your review of Pen Owen, of which, to those who have read it, I need say nothing, and those who have not read it, will probably not read my commentary. I therefore pass over details, to expose the false and mean insinuations by which, in the last sentences of his plealing, your reviewer affects to doubt who the author is, and pretends to suspect him to be a person "of great talents and great station." Now, Mr North, you and every reader have seen, with half an eye, that the writer of this trash he does not deserve the name, humble as it is, of author is not a man of talents, and you (or, at least, Ebony must) know well, that he is not a person of any station. In short, the thing is both dull and vulgar, and all your puffing and praises will never persuade even a milliner's 'prentice to think otherwise of it; and you ought to have had too much re

DEAR PHILOMAG,

Edinburgh, July 6, 1822.

I. I agree almost entirely with the opinion you express in your first paragraph. Instead of saying, "The honest and fearless spirit," &c. is, "the most remarkable feature of your Magazine," you ought to have said, "one of the most remarkable," or, "not the least remarkable and praiseworthy," or, "of the innumerable merits of your Magagazine, one of the noblest," &c,; with such slight correction, your opinion is mine.

II. You begin by complaining that we seem " to be fast degenerating into puffing and humbug." This implies that there was a time when there was neither puffing nor humbug about us. Pray, when was that?-To praise ourselves, you say, is natural and just

granted. But we have a better reason for so doing-it is most pleasant; and also, it would be bad manners not to join the universal Pæan in our praise. --If every thing that Mr Blackwood publishes is excellent, why not extol it to the skies?. Here comes the rub; so, passing by your very original dis tinction between notoriety and fame, and your most powerful antithesis, yours, or theirs," let us come to short grips, and try a fall.

III. Our London correspondents are, you think, authors whom we pay by praising their bad or indifferent works in Maga. And, first, the author of Pen Owen is one of them. To the best of our knowledge, (unless he be Philo mag himself,) he is not. What Ebony may know on this subject lies hid in his mighty heart: nor has Philomag told us how he knows that Ebony must know that the author is not a man of great talents and great station. Our insinuation, therefore, may be silly and erroneous, but it is neither mean nor false; and if Philomag were not at so great a distance from us, (his letter has the London post-mark,) we should act in the usual magnanimous manner, and hurl back (that, we think, is the ancient phrase) the insi nuation in his teeth!!! which he seems fond of shewing. We have no wish to persuade any milliner's pren tice to think Pen Owen otherwise than

V. But what I most of all object to, is your article headed "Mathews, Dibdin, and Morgan." The writer is a dull dog-depend upon it. He has never sat in the Tent-never pledged the standard-bearer he is, I fear not, even at this distance, to pronounce, a new-comer an interlopera neophyte, who has forgotten, if he ever knew, the old style of critical humbug, and has not acquired the vivacity and gaiety of the school of Christopher North, who, like his great namesake, has discovered a new world of criticism, and astounds the men of the old hemisphere of letters, by the wonders and the riches of his discoveries. "Matheus, Dibdin, and Lady Morgan!" he might as well have said, with honest Lingo, "Wat Tyler, Heliogahalus, and Jack the Painter." Why should Mother MORGAN-lucus à non lucendo, no lady is publicly called mother, who really is one-why should Mother MORGAN be mentioned as a traveller? I admit she is as weak and feeble as the "Invalid," and as great a pedant and plagiary as the "Bibliomane" but she is no traveller at all her book was made in Dublin, and smells of bogs, whisky, and sedition, like an Innishowen still. Yet your hireling for none of the good old Tent a pedant would have said school can have done this wretched work under a slight veil of dispraise, does still recommend to curiosity the

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IV. With respect to Lights and Shadows," you stand in a predicament you are little aware of. For, although I like the volume, I cannot agree with all the praise you have lavished upon it-in thus excepting it from the sweeping condemnation you have passed on other excellent works, My chief object is to sell all the works you al lude to, first, because they are good, al, secondly, because they are Blackwood!'s. Is not this a manly avowal of an honest purpose?

V. My dear Philomag, you are perfectly right "in fearing, not even at this distance, to pronounce a new-comer" the writer of the article heade al, " Matthews, Dibdin, and Morgan." But you are perfectly wrong in saying, "he is a dull dog, depend upon it.' We have no such dependence upon him. True, that the liveliest dog may be dull at a time; but, on the whole, the article is a good one. This paragraph of your epistle, however, is most excellent so much so, that you must lay your account with the whole of it being attributed to ourselves,—just that we might shew off, as we are now doing, in making a clever reply to clos ver questioning. You resemble us only in being "a person of great talents and great station"-surely you will not put up your back and bristles at that. Immediately on reading this part. of your letter, dear, we wrote off to the author of the article, and he assures us, on his word of honour, (evidently much affected,) that he had no intention of insidious praise against either the purse, person, or prate, of Mrs. Morgan, but that he subscribes to every thing you so truly, and so like “person of great talents and great station,” say about the haggard demoniac and her toothless guns.

I hope you will now retract what you have so rashly said about his being a dull dog, as a mean and fillse insinuation. What the devil, dear, do