ing remarks; and what follows is a literal copy from that author, though not pointed out by inverted commas, italics, or any other indications of a fimilar import. While employed in this humble task of copying, you have paid fo little attention to the sense, that an error, which had found its way into Dr Brewster's book, the word horizontal instead of vertical (a trap perhaps laid by the Doctor for catching the unwary plagiary) is copied into your unacknowledged extract with the same fidelity as the rest.(p. 507, at the bottom, in Gregory; p. 284 of Ferguson.) After having named Dr Brewster as above, you go on, for a page and a half or thereabouts, and end with a general reference to Brewster's Ferguson, vol. II. The passage contained between these references, is what you speak of in your letter to the editor of the Edinburgh Review, as a triumphant refutation of the assertions in our note; and you say, The piece in my first edition extracted from Brewster on Horizontal Windmills, begins thus- Mr Brewster makes the following remarks; and ends with an express reference to Brewster's Ferguson, vol. II. Now, Sir, we must be permitted to remark, that you have surely forgot all the part to which we have just adverted; and that the name of Dr Brewster is introduced, not at the beginning of what is copied from him, but near the end of it. Give us leave also to observe, that general references like the above are not such as the case demanded. You have copied verbatim and literatim; and therefore, it was not a slight note of reference that should have been given. Inverted commas, italics, or some other unequivocal sign, should have informed the reader that they were not your words, but those of another author, that were set before him. To copy a passage exactly from an author, and to give only a general reference to his work, or to a volume of his work, is in truth to practise a deception. It is equivalent to saying-This is no quotation, but an abstract of the meaning of an author given in my own words, in consequence of my having studied his writings, and made myself master of his opinions. Quoting in this fashion, when you at the same time appropriate the whole, is nearly as culpable as to have made no reference at all.

The article on the Teeth of Wheels, begins at p. 423, and extends to p. 432 of your second volume. The name of Dr Brewster is mentioned two or three times in the course of it; and at the end, you refer to four authors, Wolfius, Belidor, Camus, and Brewster; and to the first more particularly than any of the rest. Now, who would not suppose, on reading these references, that you had studied what all these four authors had written on the teeth of wheels, and had drawn up your article from

a diligent comparison of their different treatises? No one certainly would suspect that the nine preceding pages were taken, word for word, from Dr Brewster alone, and were, in reality, sixteen of his pages (p. 205, &c.) transcribed without variation. The mention made of Dr Brewster in the body of the article, leads to no suspicion of this kind; and the reference at the end to three other authors, as well as to the Doctor, induces the belief, that if you had availed yourself of any of their labours, you had done so equally, or at least in proportion to their respective values. Thus we see, that in the hands of a skilful compiler, a note of reference may, as he inclines, either discover or conceal the sources of his information.

Here, also, one may remark a curious circumstance, not unlike one already taken notice of. In consequence of an error of the engraver, Dr Brewster was obliged to introduce a note, at the bottom of p. 220, to prevent an ambiguity, arising from some letters in the figure being placed too far from the intersections which they were intended to denote. Had you bestowed much attention on the passage which you was about to transplant into your book, you would have perceived this mistake, and would have thought it the simplest way to correct the figure, and to leave out the note. You have, however, with such laudable fidelity, avoided every deviation from the original, that you have retained the error in the figure, and have also had recourse to Dr Brewster's note of explanation.

As to the thrashing machine, we readily acknowledge that there is an inaccuracy in our remark. It is not the description of the machine itself that is taken from Dr Brewster, but some remarks which follow that description, consisting of a paragraph in p. 461, and another in the following page, which concludes the article. These, together with the table to which they refer, are taken from Ferguson, vol. II. p. 351. Speaking of this table in your letter, you say that both Dr Brewster and you have taken it from Mr Fenwick. Dr Brewster, it is true, has done so ; and tells us that he did. He has, however, made a selection from Fenwick's table; and has taken, not the whole, but the parts that he judged most valuable. You have taken precisely the same parts.

You affirm positively, in your letter in the Monthly Magazine, that no part of your description of the thrashing machine is taken from Dr Brewster. This is indeed true; but he will find himself in an error, who, on that account, supposes that it is not taken from any other author; for it is to be found in the Encyclopædia Bri-" tannica, with very little variation, the figures being also precisely the same, and drawn to the same scale. The machine describ-` ed, is one which has long since given place to more improved inventions,

inventions, and is now entirely laid aside. Your description of another machine of still earlier date, viz. 1758, is derived from the same source; and both without any acknowledgment. See Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. Thrashing Machine.

The above are the instances of your making free with the works of others, which were alluded to in our Note; and, after correcting what degree of inaccuracy there was in our statement, we believe that we have only added to the evidence of our general proposition. We might add several other instances. On the subject of water-mills, at p. 485, 486, a paragraph of twentyfive lines is taken, word for word, from Dr Brewster's Ferguson, vol. II. p. 196, 197. So, also, under the same article, at p. 489, in your second volume, a paragraph of sixteen lines, relating to the discovery of the maximum of the effect of water-wheels, by De Pareieux, is taken from Ferguson, p. 198. And again, at p. 492, from Ferguson, p. 184, on the subject of concave floatboards. These are given entirely without reference; and indeed the whole article of Water-Mills is drawn up in a way that gives no small insight into the secrets of compilation. You profess to follow Dr Robison in the Encyclopædia Britannica; and you go on copying literally from that work, and from Ferguson's Mechanics, nearly alternately, but without ever mentioning the latter, and without quoting the Encyclopædia, in the manner you should have done, when you copied whole pages without alteration. This continues for nearly eight pages, with now and then a paragraph of your own.

'The references which have been made above are to your first edition; in the second, several of the passages here stated to be taken from Ferguson's Mechanics, are not to be found. This makes it necessary for us to consider, a little more accurately, in what the difference of the two editions really consists.

When the first edition of your Mechanics reached Edinburgh, the liberal use which you had made of the valuable and judicious Notes with which Dr Brewster had illustrated the text of Ferguson, could not but give offence to the proprietors of that work. They conceived what you had done to be a manifest invasion of their rights, and an injury which the law might be called on to redress. In consequence of this, an interdict or injunction was applied for, or threatened to be applied for; and attornies were employed on the part of the proprietors on both sides. Certain con

cessions were made on your part; and the matter, if we mistake not, terminated by your agreeing that the greater part of the exceptionable passages should be cancelled or recomposed, (or, to speak more properly, recompiled), in a new edition. This happened in summer 1806, in the beginning of which year your

book

book had been published. The second edition appeared in 1807; and this uncommnoly rapid sale of a book of science might have induced a belief that a trick had been played off, which, we fear, is not quite unprecedented, the second edition being no other than the first, with a new title-page, and some other slight alterations. Of this, however, an advertisement prefixed to the first volume did not allow any idea to be entertained.

In the new impression of this work, which the favour of the public has thus so soon rendered necessary, the author has not been able to discharge the debt of gratitude to those who have 'so liberally encouraged his performance, otherwise than by correcting some errors, and making a few slight alterations and additions in both volumes, with some correspouding improvements in two or three of the plates.'

From this we must certainly infer, that the whole of the first edition was already sold off; it is on this account that you return thanks, though we must say that the favour you announce to those who had not purchased your book, is not a very logical demonstration of your gratitude to those who had. Whatever was the case, it is certain that the second edition differs from the first almust in nothing, but in leaving out the articles taken from Dr Brewster, and in substituting some new matter in their place, occupying exactly the same space which they had occupied. This is done with so much exactness, that, after each alteration, the same precise order goes on in the pages, the lines, and even the words of the two editions. Were it not for the assertion involved in your advertisement, this would confirm one in the notion, that there was in fact no new impression, but merely the cancelling and reprinting of a few leaves. Those who are so uncharitable as to hold that opinion, will be at no loss to find out other facts in support of it. At page 399, vol. 1st of your first edition, the third book ends with the subject of Capillary Attraction, without having reached the middle of the page. The remainder of that therefore, is a blank, as is also the whole of the next, which, being the left hand page, the printer did not think suitable for beginning a new book. Now, it is exactly into these two pages, so inadequate to the purpose, that La Place's theory of Capillary Attraction, which you had announced in the advertisement, is condensed. The quantity of this alteration is so accurately adjusted, that not the least encroachment is made, either in the pages that go before, or on those that come after; and the beginning falls so happily, as to allow the last line of page 398 to remain in the second edition the same as in the first, though making a part of a sentence in the former quite different from what it does in the latter. The circumstances in which the above men

page,

tioned line is found, were such as immediately to suggest the idea, that the leaf which follows it must be one that was reprinted after the original had been cancelled. The binding of a book may sometimes give material information concerning its internal structure; and on appealing to it, we found that the leaf (p. 199. 200.) in what is called the second edition, is not in continuity with any other leaf of the book, though firmly attached to them by glue. It is therefore a leaf reprinted after the cancel of the former.

A fact equally in favour of the hypothesis, that there was no new impression, is, that the errata in your two editions are precisely the same, and that even the same table of them is found at the end. The table, indeed, might have been kept through negligence, though the errata were in fact corrected. This, however, is not the case; for if you take any erratum from the table, you will find, on looking up the place, that it is carefully preserved in the new edition. This, it must be confessed, is quite unaccountable, if the editions are really different. The first thing that the printer does, when i work is to undergo a new impression, to corect the errata that have been discovered, in the copy to be printed from; and this is so plain a dictate of common sense, that we cannot, in any instance, suppose it to have been neglected.

Still, however, before your readers have a right to form a decided opinion, it behoves them to weigh the evidence on opposite sides, and to consider on which it preponderates. Against the hypothesis, we have the direct testimony of the author himself, a man of character and education, and holding a respectable rank in society in favour of it, we have the curious combination of circumstances just stated, which, if taken by itself, would amount to a probability falling short of certainty by a quantity incalculably small. Every man must determine for himself what opinion he is to form, and will naturally adopt the supposition he thinks least wonderful. We have stated the evidence fairly as it appears to us: the task of drawing the conclusion, we leave to those who may be supposed more impartial judges.

It remains for us, Sir, to mention some examples, the same precisely in both editions of your work, where propositions and demonstrations are borrowed, without acknowledgment, from authors that have not yet been mentioned. One of the most remarkable of these is a proposition given at page 409, &c. of your first volume, constituting two articles, and containing a very beautiful theory of the whirlpool formed by water flowing through a horizontal aperture, and impelled at the same time by some external force. No reference is here made to any book whatsoever; and the reader, of course, is left to ascribe to yourself the

whole