nced; and if world be right in supposing me incapable of a foul act, I
shall proclaim glorious discovery in the _Athenaeum_.

"_April 15._--Sir,... My dear Sir, Your sincere tutelary. Copy of another
letter to clergyman; discovery tested by logarithms; reasons such as none
but a knave or a sinner can resist. Let me advise you to take counsel
before it is too late! Keep your temper. Let not your _pride_ get the
better of your discretion! Screw up your courage, my good friend, and
_resolve_ to show the world that you are an _honest_ man....

"_April 20._--Sir ... Your very sincere and favorite tutelary. I have long
played the _cur_, snapping and snarling...; suddenly lost my power, and
became _half-starved_ dog without _spirit_ to bark; try if air cannot
restore me; calls himself the _thistle_ in allusion to my other tutelary,
the _thorn_; Would I prefer his next work to be, 'A whip for the
Mathematical Cur, Prof. De M.' In some previous letter which I have
mislaid, he told me his next would be 'a muzzle for the Mathematical Bull
dog, Prof. De M.'

"_April 23._--Sir. Very sincerely yours. More letters to clergyman; you may
as well knock your head against a stone wall to improve your intellect as
attempt to controvert my proofs. [I thought so too; and tried neither].
{246}

"_May 6._--My dear Sir. Very sincerely yours. All to myself, and nothing to
note.

"_July 2._--No more in this interval. All that precedes is a desperate
attempt to induce me to continue my descriptions: notoriety at any price."

I dare say the matter is finished: the record of so marked an instance of
self-delusion will be useful.

I append to the foregoing a letter from Dr. Whewell[395] to Mr. James
Smith. The Master of Trinity was conspicuous as a rough customer, an
intellectual bully, an overbearing disputant: the character was as well
established as that of Sam Johnson. But there was a marked difference. It
was said of Johnson that if his pistol missed fire, he would knock you down
with the butt end of it: but Whewell, in like case, always acknowledged the
miss, and loaded again or not, as the case might be. He reminded me of
Dennis Brulgruddery, who says to Dan, Pacify me with a good reason, and
you'll find me a dutiful master. I knew him from the time when he was my
teacher at Cambridge, more than forty years. As a teacher, he was anything
but dictatorial, and he was perfectly accessible to proposal of objections.
He came in contact with m