wn that the author
before him is altered, he knows not where nor how nor by whom, the lowest
reader will lose his interest.

A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM FREND.

The principles of Algebra. By William Frend.[441] London, 1796, 8vo.
Second Part, 1799.

This Algebra, says Dr. Peacock,[442] shows "great distrust {197} of the
results of algebraical science which were in existence at the time when it
was written." Truly it does; for, as Dr. Peacock had shown by full
citation, it makes war of extermination upon all that distinguishes algebra
from arithmetic. Robert Simson[443] and Baron Maseres[444] were Mr. Frend's
predecessors in this opinion.

The genuine respect which I entertained for my father-in-law did not
prevent my canvassing with perfect freedom his anti-algebraical and
anti-Newtonian opinions, in a long obituary memoir read at the Astronomical
Society in February 1842, which was written by me. It was copied into the
_Athenaeum_ of March 19. It must be said that if the manner in which algebra
_was_ presented to the learner had been true algebra, he would have been
right: and if he had confined himself to protesting against the imposition
of attraction as a fundamental part of the existence of matter, he would
have been in unity with a great many, including Newton himself. I wish he
had preferred amendment to rejection when he was a college tutor: he wrote
and spoke English with a clearness which is seldom equaled.

His anti-Newtonian discussions are confined to the preliminary chapters of
his _Evening Amusements_,[445] a series of astronomical lessons in nineteen
volumes, following the moon through a period of the golden numbers.

There is a mistake about him which can never be destroyed. It is constantly
said that, at his celebrated trial in 1792, for sedition and opposition to
the Liturgy, etc., he was _expelled_ from the University. He was
_banished_. People cannot see the difference; but it made all the
difference to {198} Mr. Frend. He held his fellowship and its profits till
his marriage in 1808, and was a member of the University and of its Senate
till his death in 1841, as any Cambridge Calendar up to 1841 will show.
That they would have expelled him if they could, is perfectly true; and
there is a funny story--also perfectly true--about their first proceedings
being under a statute which would have given the power, had it not been
discovered during the proceedings that the statute did not exist. It