t, if required to name one of the monkish doctors, he would have
answered--Aristotle. These schoolmen, and the "philosophical trinity of
gravitating force, projectile force, and void space," were the bogies of
his life.

I think he began to publish speculations in the _Monthly Magazine_ (of
which he was editor) in July 1817: these he republished separately in 1818.
In the Preface, perhaps judging the feelings of others by his own, he says
that he "fully expects to be vilified, reviled, and anathematized, for many
years to come." Poor man! he was let alone. He appeals with confidence to
the "impartial decision of posterity"; but posterity does not appoint a
hearing for one per cent. of the appeals which are made; and it is much to
be feared that an article in such a work of reference as this will furnish
nearly all her materials fifty years hence. The following, addressed to M.
Arago,[561] in 1835, will give posterity as good a notion as she will
probably need:

"Even the present year has afforded EVER-MEMORABLE examples, paralleled
only by that of the Romish Conclave which persecuted Galileo. Policy has
adopted that maxim of Machiavel which teaches that it is _more prudent_ to
_reward_ {244} partisans than to _persecute_ opponents. Hence, a bigotted
party had influence enough with the late short-lived administration [I
think he is wrong as to the administration] of Wellington, Peel, &c., to
confer munificent royal pensions on three writers whose sole distinction
was their advocacy of the Newtonian philosophy. A Cambridge professor last
year published an elaborate volume in illustration of _Gravitation_, and on
him has been conferred a pension of 300l. per annum. A lady has written a
light popular view of the Newtonian Dogmas, and she has been complimented
by a pension of 200l. per annum. And another writer, who has recently
published a volume to prove that the only true philosophy is that of Moses,
has been endowed with a pension of 200l. per annum. Neither of them were
needy persons, and the political and ecclesiastical bearing of the whole
was indicated by another pension of 300l. bestowed on a political writer,
the advocate of all abuses and prejudices. Whether the conduct of the
Romish Conclave was more base for visiting with legal penalties the
promulgation of the doctrines that the Earth turns on its axis and revolves
around the Sun; or that of the British Court, for its craft in conferring
pensions on the opponen