as an honest Geometer and Mathematician was not at stake, is warned against the fallacia plurium interrogationum. He is told that there is not a more honest what's-his-name in the world: but that as to the counter which he calls his character as a mathematician, he is assured that it had been staked years ago, and lost. And thus truth has the last word. There is no occasion to say much about reprints. One of them is a letter [that given above] of August 25, 1865, written by Mr. J. S. to the Correspondent. It is one of his quadratures; and the joke is that I am made to be the writer: it appears as what Mr. J. S. hopes I shall have the sense to write in the Athenæum and forestall him. When I saw myself thus quoted—yes! quoted! double commas, first person—I felt as I suppose did Wm. Wilberforce when he set eyes on the affectionate benediction of the potato which waggish comrades had imposed on a raw Irish reporter as part of his speech. I felt as Martin of Galway—kind friend of the poor dumb creatures!—when he was told that the newspapers had put him in Italics. 'I appeal to you, Mr. Speaker! I appeal to the House! Did I speak in Italics? Do I ever speak in Italics?' I appeal to editor and readers, whether I ever squared the circle until a week or two ago, when I gave my charitable mode of reconciling the discrepant cyclometers.
The absurdity of the imitation of symbolic reasoning is so lusciously rich, that I shall insert it when I make up my final book. Somebody mastered Spanish merely to read Don Quixote: it would be worth while to learn a little algebra merely to enjoy this a b-istical attack on the windmills. The principle is, Prove something in as roundabout a way as possible, mention the circle once or twice irrelevantly in the course of your proof, and then make an act of Q. E. D. in words at length. The following is hardly caricature:—
To prove that 2 and 2 make 5. Let , : let , the number of the House: let , the number of the Beast. Then of necessity ; so that 1 is a harmonious and logical quantification of the number of which we are to take care. Now, , the middle of our digital system, is, by mathematical and geometrical combination, a mean between 5 + 1 and 2 + 2. Let 1 be removed to be taken care of, a thing no real mathematician can refuse without serious injury to his mathematical and geometrical reputation. It follows of necessity that 2 + 2 = 5, quod erat demonstrumhorrendum. If Simpkin & Marshall have not, after my notice, to account for
