over-rated, and so little liable was I to the last misfortune, that perhaps it had now happened to me for the first time. I had not such extensive reading as qualified me to bear much s are in so comprehensive a work, nor did I greatly relish the idea of searching a vast number of books for the necessary facts. There were, however, a few articles, as iron and some others belonging to metallurgy or chemical mineralogy, in which I would assist him; but I would by no means engage to write an equal share of four or five vols. 4to. Besides, he was the most able and conspicuous defender of the old system. To me, truth seemed to lie on the opposite side: The different articles would therefore be at variance with one another; and though he probably had raised his mind by reflexion above such a weakness, few men could bear to be contradicted, and fewer to be confuted by those who were much younger than themselves. He still continued his solicitations, and requested at least that I would consider his proposal seriously before we should meet next.

"The morning I came away I played an hour and a half at battledore and shuttle-cock with Miss K—; and she promised the next time I came, to go with me to Dudley Hill and shew me some fossil curiosities, which her father and I had failed to find. We had seen some curious dispositions of strata from lifting, and upon comparing the globules from Chinoweth (how do you spell the word) with the Rowley rag-stone we could not perceive any difference. Miss Kis a botanist and somewhat of a chemist. Her father strongly objected to music, and went so far as to say, that girls who were good players were good for nothing else. You may be sure I was faithful enough to the truth to protest against the narrowness of this opinion: I told him if he could bring me as decisive experiments, as I could bring him instances of ladies who excelled in music without being deficient in any thing he might require in the sex, I would relinquish to Jud : alod of og bljoW oxygene and return to phlogiston.

“I may be thankful to my residence in Cornwall for being able to walk home (twenty miles) without stopping on the way, and without inconvenience. Yet I was loaded with one quarto and two octavo books, and a few articles besides.

1

"Without laying a bait for a compliment, I am alarmed at the weary length of my letters., I will, curtail them in future. Can you read this galloping hand? I hope you will be able, for it is a great convenience to me to write thus, without attention to the words I use or the way I write them."

66

My dear Friend,

66

Shiffnal, Dec. 1.

"I have lately fallen in with a number of persons of intelligence in various departments, and as I imagine the sun of information sometimes peeps but late over your western hemisphere, I will try to recollect the heads of what I have heard. The siege of Syracuse by the Romans, not to take you back all at once to too remote a period, happened, I think, a little more than two hundred years before our æra. None of those revolutions took place in Sicily, that overwhelm a nation and all its monuments in total destruction. The people remained, and the language. The chain of history continued unbroken. Nevertheless, Cicero, so soon afterwards, is not a little vain of having pointed out to his countrymen the forgotten tomb of Archimedes. With what With what congratulations then shall we receive the man who has been fortunate enough to draw aside the veil which oblivion has held for three thousand years over the remains of Troy? Yes, they are brought to light; the ruins of the Scaan gate, the foundations of the walls and of the turrets, and the Tristes Danaûm reliquiæ, the tombs of Ajax and Achilles. Tell me, if you possessed the cap of Fortunatus, would you transport yourself to the banks of the Seine or Scamander? for my own part I would go to both; but my first flight should not be to either. How

ever, by taking Montmartre in your way to Mount Ida, you might appease in a small degree the hunger of curiosity, by examining bouche béante, the ashes of the Telamonian Ajax, and the urn which contains them. Though I am indeed sorely grieved to add, that according to our last advices, the said urn has been melted down with as little compunction, as if it had been modern European brass, instead of antient Asiatic orichalch. Nothing should have tempted me to commit so enormous a sacrilege. ' But are you jesting, or seized with a fit of credulity?' I am serious I assure you. My information comes, not immediately, but through a very pure and short channel, from a judicious and well informed person who spent the last spring and winter at Edinburgh in the capacity of a tutor; and who, unluckily for me, had, on my arrival, just quitted this country to go back thither. I cannot, therefore, give you the proofs of this extraordinary discovery so fully and so distinctly as I otherwise might have been able to do, but they will be published in the 3d vol. of the Edinburgh Transactions. The discoverer is a Frenchman: his paper was read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and, I understand, has had great weight with all who have considered it. Whether, besides mere situation, there are any inscriptions, I have not learned."

In the last letter was inclosed a short paper, which endeavoured to account for the curl, as it is called, in potatoes. The epistolary style is still preserved in it, but the speculation appears so ingenious, and affords at the same time such striking evidence of a mind which suffered nothing to escape observation, that I have thought it worth preserving. He appears to have thrown out some hints upon this subject during his visit in Cornwall, and it was at the request of his

m

G

m See Appendix, No. 4.

friend that he now committed them to paper. I know not whether this was the circumstance which awakened afresh his ardour for botany; a science to which, as has been formerly remarked, he was partial, and in which he had made extensive acquisitions; but we find him early in January of the succeeding year (1792) engaged in writing Botanical Dialogues, which he thus announces in one of his letters.

"Will you laugh or will you frown if I tell you that I have begun to write a set of Botanical Dialogues? I wish the thought had struck me three months ago. I would give any thing I have to give, to shew them to a certain person, and to hear the opinion of that person." Even now, deprived, as I am, of so great an advantage, if I can present to others, the ideas that float in my own imagination, in their proper shapes and colours, I shall do more good to women and children, than you will perhaps think of at first. In a day or two I shall hear the opinion of and, and, for want of a better criterion, I shall lay a good deal of stress upon their judgment. Two or three tolerable judges have pronounced too favorable a sentence upon the beginning already. You must understand I write them as fast as I write this letter."

Early in the year he returned to resume the duties of his lectureship at Oxford. His class was still crowded, and the enthusiasm for

'n An allusion is here made to a lady of superior talents, whom Dr. Beddoes had met in Cornwall, and who appears to have powerfully impressed his imagination.

• One of his letters, written soon after his return, contains an amusing anecdote: Mr. S—, a member of his college, had introduced to him a Mr. Millar of Edinburgh; a gentleman whom the Doctor characterizes as an intelligent and respectable man, and a friend of Adam Smith. They soon entered into a very pleasant conversation, during which a variety of literary topics were discussed. Amongst others, a metaphysical work which had not been long published, and the doctrines of which appeared to both, pre-eminently absurd, was alluded to. "I told him," says the Doctor, "that since the loss of Hume and Adam Smith, his country was in danger of losing its credit for philosophy; and speculatists, such as the author of the work alluded to,

science appeared to spread rapidly among his youthful auditory. In the course of the spring he was particularly gratified by a discovery made by one of his mineralogical pupils, which appeared to confirm his speculations relative to the volcanic origin of Granite. The seat of this discovery seems to have been on the borders of Devonshire and Cornwall, whither he invites his friend Reynolds, with some degree of triumph to contemplate the phenomenon. He begins a second letter on the same subject with an abruptness which, had it been intercepted in a season of political agitation, might have excited some alarm. "The plot thickens," he observes, “and we shall certainly have a volcanic eruption in full form in the West. My pupil has found the aperture whence the glassy lava issued. This he has clearly ascertained, and he has made a great number of acute and curious observations besides. He has found granite including masses of other substances, and injected into fissures, with a variety of appearances clearly indicating the posterior and igneous origin of this supposed primitive material; posterior only in this and similar cases. I doubt not of your being willing and even desirous to inspect such a scene. The only question is can you leave Shropshire for three or four days? If you can, say so; et ero tibi magnus Apollo. I will shew you what you never could expect to see. You might bring a third person to Bristol; he should not be too corpulent, and we will drive over the hills and far away. But alas,

Adam Smith has

By the gloom of
I had said some-

could not maintain it: But there is one person upon whom the spirit of rested, and he is a namesake of your's, Professor Millar, of Glasgow. displeasure which instantly overspread S-'s countenance, I suspected that thing that I ought not to have said before the parties who were present; and I afterwards found that our stranger was Professor Millar himself. S has worked up the adventure into one of his best stories, and if he has any correspondent in Cornwall, who happens to know me, you may have it in a much more agreeable attitude and dress, than as it stands here in the simplicity of truth."