d read Sam Weller's pathetic story of the "four wax dummies." As to
_his_ use of a dummy, it is quite correct. When I was at University
College, I walked one day into a room in which my Latin colleague was
examining. One of the questions was, "Give the lives and fates of Sp.
Maelius,[644] and Sp. Cassius."[645] Umph! said I, surely all know that
Spurius Maelius was whipped for adulterating flour, and that Spurius Cassius
was hanged for passing bad money. Now, a robe arranged on a dummy would
look just like the toga of Cassius on the gallows. Accordingly, Mr. Smith
is right in the drapery-hanger which he has chosen: he has been detected in
the attempt to pass bad circles. He complains bitterly that his geometry,
instead of being read and understood by you, is handed over to me to be
treated after my scurrilous fashion. It is clear enough that he would
rather be handled in this way than not handled at all, or why does he go on
writing? He must know by this time that it is a part of the institution
that his "untruthful and absurd trash" shall be distilled into mine at the
rate of about 3-1/8 pages of the first to one column of the second. Your
readers will never know how much they gain by the process, until Mr. James
Smith publishes it all in a big book, or until they get hold of what he has
already published. I have six pounds avoirdupois of pamphlets and letters;
and there is more than half a pound of letters {343} written to you in the
last two months. Your compositor must feel aggrieved by the rejection of
these clearly written documents, without erasures, and on one side only.
Your correspondent has all the makings of a good contributor, except the
knowledge of his subject and the sense to get it. He is, in fact, only a
mask: of whom the fox

"O quanta species, inquit, cerebrum non habet."[646]

I do not despair of Mr. Smith on any question which does not involve that
unfortunate two-stick wicket at which he persists in bowling. He has
published many papers; he has forwarded them to mathematicians: and he
cannot get answers; perhaps not even readers. Does he think that he would
get more notice if you were to print him in your journal? Who would study
his columns? Not the mathematician, we know; and he knows. Would others?
His balls are aimed too wide to be blocked by any one who is near the
wicket. He has long ceased to be worth the answer which a new invader may
get. Rowan Hamilton,[647] years ago, completely knocked