le who can attribute anything to casual coincidence; who
allow Zadok Imposture and Nathan Coincidence to anoint Solomon Selfconceit
king. At the other end we have those who see something _very curious_ in
any coincidence you please, and whose minds yearn for a deep reason. A
speculator of this class happened to find that Matthew viii. 28-33 and Luke
viii. 26-33 contain the same account, that of the demons entering into the
swine. Very odd! chapters tallying, and verses so nearly: is the
versification rightly managed? Examination is sure to show that there are
monstrous inconsistencies in the mode of division, which being corrected,
the verses tally as well as the chapters. And then how comes it? I cannot
go on, {52} for I have no gift at torturing a coincidence, but I would lay
twopence, if I could make a bet--which I never did in all my life--that
some one or more of my readers will try it. Some people say that the study
of chances tends to awaken a spirit of gambling: I suspect the contrary. At
any rate, I myself, the writer of a mathematical book and a comparatively
popular book, have never laid a bet nor played for a stake, however small:
not one single time.

It is useful to record such instances as I have given, with precision and
on the solemn word of the recorder. When such a story as that of Flamsteed
is told, _a priori_ assures us that it could not have been: the story may
have been a _ben trovato_,[99] but not the bundle. It is also useful to
establish some of the good jokes which all take for inventions. My friend
Mr. J. Bellingham Inglis,[100] before 1800, saw the tobacconist's carriage
with a sample of tobacco in a shield, and the motto _Quid rides_[101] (_N._
& _Q._, 3d S. i. 245). His father was able to tell him all about it. The
tobacconist was Jacob Brandon, well known to the elder Mr. Inglis, and the
person who started the motto, the instant he was asked for such a thing,
was Harry Calender of Lloyd's, a scholar and a wit. My friend Mr. H. Crabb
Robinson[102] remembers the King's Counsel (Samuel Marryat) who took the
motto _Causes produce effects_, when his success enabled him to start a
carriage.

The coincidences of errata are sometimes very remarkable: it may be that
the misprint has a sting. The death of Sir W. Hamilton[103] of Edinburgh
was known in London on a Thursday, and the editor of the _Athenaeum_ wrote
to {53} me in the afternoon for a short obituary notice to appear on
Saturday. I dashed