IV. 1. Memoirs of William Forster. Edited by Benjamin 2. Quakerism, Past and Present: being an Inquiry into the Causes of its Decline in Great Britain and Ireland. By John Stevenson Rountree. First Prize Essay. 3. The Peculium : an Endeavour to throw Light on some of the causes of the Decline of the Society of Friends, especially in regard to its original claim of VI.-The Church of England a portion of Christ's One Holy Catholic Church, and a Means of restoring visible Unity. An Eirenicon. In a Letter to the Author of 'The TITLE-PAGE AND INDEX TO VOL. L. II.1. Historia Regis Henrici Septimi, a Bernardo Andrea Tholosate conscripta; necnon alia quædam ad eundem Regem spectantia. Edited by James Gairdner. Pub- lished by the authority of the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury, under the direction of the 2. Letters and Papers illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII. Edited by James Gairdner. Pub- lished by the authority of the Lords Commissioners of 3. Letters and Papers illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III. and Henry VII. Edited by James Gairdner. Pub- lished by the authority of the Lords Commissioners of III.-Platonis Euthydemus et Laches. Præfixa est Epistola IV. Berengarius Turonensis, oder eine Sammlung ihn be- VI.-1. Novum Testamentum Græce. Ad antiquissimos testes denuo recensuit, apparatum criticum omni studio per- fectum apposuit, commentationem isagogicam prætexuit Constantinus Tischendorf. Editio octava. [Pars I., 1864, Pars II., 1865; pp. 256: S. Matth. i. 1.—Marc. 2. Novum Testamentum Græce. Ex Sinaitico Codice omnium antiquissimo, Vaticana itemque Elzeveriana lec- VII.-The Life of Father Ignatius of S. Paul Passionist (the VIII.—1. Libri Precum Publicarum Ecclesiæ Anglicana, Versio Latina, a Gulielmo Bright, A. M. et Petro Goldsmith 2. Sacra Academica; a Collection of Latin Prayers, now or lately used in certain Colleges and Schools in England. 436 THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. JANUARY, 1866. 6 ART. I.-1. The Ninth Bridgewater Treatise; a Fragment. By Second Edition. London: J. 2. Passages from the Life of a Philosopher. By CHARLES BABBAGE, Esq. M.A. F.R.S. F.R.S.E. &c. &c. &c. &c. Commander of the Italian Order of S. Maurice and S. Lazarus, Inst. imp. (Acad. Moral.) Paris, Corr. Acad. Amer. &c. &c. &c. London: Longmans. 1864. THE et cæteras are ours; for it would be too much to go through the whole four lines of titles-many of them utterly incomprehensible to any but the happy possessor-which Mr. Babbage sports. Who can say, off-hand, for instance, what ACAD. REG. MONAC. HAFN. may mean? We note at once that they have all been added in the interval between the publication of the books at the head of our article. 'I now gave my mind to philosophy: 'the great object of my ambition was to make out a complete 'system of the universe. Instead of countenance, encouragement, and applause, I was exposed to calumny and misrepre'sentation. Some even went so far as to accuse me of infidelity.' This, which our author prints as a 'motto' on his title-page, and which he professes to quote from The Autobiography of an Oyster, deciphered by the aid of photography in the shell of a philosopher of that race, recently scalloped,' does really contain the sum and substance of the volume-a theoretical contempt for mankind, between whom and cheese mites Mr. Babbage draws out a long comparison, by no means to the advantage of the former; and the very 'miracles' vouchsafed to whom he looks on as 'singular instances happening strictly according to the law ' of the universe-just as the Difference Engine, having for so many hundred thousand times formed squares, forms a cube 'just once, and then, reverting to its squares, repeats the exception at just the same interval'—a theoretical contempt for men, combined with a practical sensitiveness to the opinion of others, and a morbid impatience of their dissent from him. Not a very pleasant character, one would say; and yet Mr. Babbage is a fairly pleasant companion, if you give him his head, and do not touch him on any of his numerous 'raws '-ay, and an amusing one too. His jokes are heavy, of the common-room' calibre; but he has seen a good many great people, and such a man always has something to say which is worth reading. It is his egotism, strangely enough, which saves the man. He is not conceited, only, but so ridiculously vain, that his very conceit keeps him from being the morbid nuisance which he else might become. His book is amusing, because there is no one subject in the whole range of science and art on which he does not feel competent to pass an opinion; and very few to which he does not claim to have done good service. His thirty-third chapter, detailing the author's contributions to human knowledge,' shows us how he started philosophical societies in Italy, how he is the parent of our own Statistical Society, how he has done much towards political economy-above all, how (in the 'Ninth Bridgewater Treatise') first he gave that view of miracles which we have mentioned that they are not exceptions, but isolated cases coming out in the ordinary course of things. This view,' he says, has been examined by some of the deepest thinkers in many 'lands. Its adoption by them has been unanimous,'-which certainly is not the case-in spite of the difference of their theological opinions.' Then we have, in chapter thirty-four, 'the author's further contributions to human knowledge. Nothing escapes him. He has his theory on glaciers. He forms a plan for transmitting letters enclosed in small cylinders, along wires suspended from posts, towers, or church steeples,' anticipating the shrewdness of the old lady who, wishing her letter to be quickly delivered, hung it on the wires of the electric telegraph. Passing over inventions as numerous as those of the projectors whom Gulliver saw at Ladago, we must note his system of occulting numerical lights, which might surely be advantageously adopted in our lighthouses. In reference to this Mr. Babbage tells two of his best anecdotes. He had prepared twelve copies of a description of his contrivance, of which he was exceedingly proud, and despatched them to the proper authorities of the great maritime countries. One was sent to the French Prince President,' on 30th November, 1852. Two days after came the coup d'état. However,' (says our author) 'three days later I received 'from M. Mocquard (the correspondent of the Owl) the prettiest note, thanking me, and assuring me that the Prince was as ⚫ much attached as ever to science,'-a very comforting assurance, truly, at that particular time. His letter to the United States |