r he visited Cambridge he was never known to go
twice to the same inn he never would sleep at the rectory with another
person in the house some ancient charwoman used to attend to the house but
never slept in it he has been known in the time of coach travelling to have
{235} deferred his return to Yorkshire on account of his disinclination to
travel with a lady in the coach he continued his mathematical studies until
his death and till his executors sold the type all his tracts to the number
of five were kept in type at the university press none of these tracts had
any stops except full stops at the end of paragraphs only neither had they
capitals except one at the beginning of a paragraph so that a full stop was
generally followed by some white as there is not a single proper name in
the whole of the book I have I am not able to say whether he would have
used capitals before proper names I have inserted them as usual for which I
hope his spirit will forgive me if I be wrong he also published the
elements of geometry in two volumes quarto Cambridge 1815 this book had
also no stops except when a comma was wanted between letters as in the
straight lines AB, BC I should also say that though the title is
unpunctuated in the author's part it seems the publishers would not stand
it in their imprint this imprint is punctuated as usual and Deighton and
Sons to prove the completeness of their allegiance have managed that comma
semicolon and period shall all appear in it why could they not have
contrived interrogation and exclamation this is a good precedent to
establish the separate right of the publisher over the imprint it is said
that only twenty of the tracts were printed and very few indeed of the book
on geometry it is doubtful whether any were sold there is a copy of the
geometry in the university library at Cambridge and I have one myself the
matter of the geometry differs entirely from Euclid and is so fearfully
prolix that I am sure no mortal except the author ever read it the man went
on without stops and without stop save for a period at the end of a
paragraph this is the unpunctuated account of the unpunctuating geometer
_suum cuique tribuito_[531] Mrs Thrale[532] would have been amused {236} at
a Dobson who managed to come to a full stop without either of the three
warnings.

I do not find any difficulty in reading Dobson's geometry; and I have read
more of it to try reading without stops than I should have done had