*

NOTES.

STRAY NOTES ON CUNNINGHAM'S LONDON.

The following notes are so trivial, that I should have scrupled to send
them on any other ground than that so well-conceived and
labouriously-executed a work should have its most minute and unimportant
details as correct as possible. This, in such a work, can only be
effected by each reader pointing out the circumstances that he has
reason to believe are not quite correctly or completely given in it.

Page 24. _Astronomical Society._--The library has been recently
augmented by the incorporation with it of the books and documents (as
well as the members) of the _Mathematical Society of London_
(Spitalfields). It contains the most complete collection of the English
mathematical works of the last century known to exist. A friend, who has
examined them with some care, specifies particularly some of the tracts
published in the controversy raised by Bishop Berkeley respecting "the
ghosts of departed quantities," of which he did before know the
existence.

The instruments to which Mr. Cunningham refers as bequeathed to the
Society, are not used there, nor yet allowed to lie unused. They are
placed in the care of active practical observers, according as the
special character of the instruments and the special subjects to which
each observer more immediately devotes his attention, shall render the
assignment of the instrument expedient. The instruments, however, still
remain the property of the Society.

P. 37. _Bath House._--Date omitted.

P. 143.--Evan's Hotel, Covent Garden, is described as having been once
the residence of "James West, the great collector of books, &c., and
_President of the Royal Society_." There has certainly never been a
President, or even a Secretary, of that name. However, it is just
possible that there might have been a Vice-president so named (as these
are chosen by the President from the members of the council, and the
council has not always been composed of men of science): but even this
is somewhat doubtful.

P. 143. _Covent Garden Theatre._--No future account of this theatre will
be complete without the facts connected with the ill-starred Delafield;
just as, into the Olympic, the history of the defaulter Watts, of the
Globe Assurance Office, must also enter.

P. 143. near top of col. 2. "Heigho! says Kemble."--Before this period,
a variation of the _rigmarole_ upon which this is founded had become
poplular, from the humour of Liston's