. It is said of him that he "created Belgium, saved Portugal and
Spain from absolutism, rescued Turkey from Russia and the highway to India
from France." He was Prime Minister almost continuously from 1855 to 1865,
a period covering the Indian Mutiny and the American Civil War.

[628] William Cavendish, seventh Duke of Devonshire (1808-1891). He was
member for Cambridge from 1829 to 1831, but was defeated in 1831 because he
had favored parliamentary reform. He became Earl of Burlington in 1834, and
Duke of Devonshire in 1858. He was much interested in the promotion of
railroads and in the iron and steel industries.

[629] Richard Sheepshanks (1794-1855) was a brother of John Sheepshanks the
benefactor of art. (See note 314, p. 147.) He was a fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, a fellow of the Royal Society and secretary of the
Astronomical Society. Babbage (See note 469, p. 207) suspected him of
advising against the government support of his calculating machine and
attacked him severely in his _Exposition of 1851_, in the chapter on _The
Intrigues of Science_. Babbage also showed that Sheepshanks got an
astronomical instrument of French make through the custom house by having
Troughton's (See note 332, page 152) name engraved on it. Sheepshanks
admitted this second charge, but wrote a _Letter in Reply to the Calumnies
of Mr. Babbage_, which was published in 1854. He had a highly controversial
nature.

[630] See note 469, page 207. The work referred to is _Passages from the
Life of a Philosopher_, London, 1864.

[631] Drinkwater Bethune. See note 165, page 99.

[632] Simeon-Denis Poisson (1781-1840) was professor of calculus and
mechanics at the Ecole polytechnique. He was made a baron by Napoleon, and
was raised to the peerage in 1837. His chief works are the _Traite de
mecanique_ (1811) and the _Traite mathematique de la chaleur_ (1835).

[633] "As to M. Poisson, I really wish I had a thousandth part of his
mathematical knowledge that I might prove my system to the incredulous."

[634] This list includes most of the works of Antoine-Louis-Guenard
Demonville. There was also the _Nouveau systeme du monde ... et hypotheses
conformes aux experiences sur les vents, sur la lumiere et sur le fluide
electro-magnetique_, Paris, 1830.

[635] Paris, 1835.

[636] Paris, 1833.

[637] The second part appeared in 1837. There were also editions in 1850
and 1852, and one edition appeared without date.

[638] Paris, 1842.