f women's society, would
not deign to enter into conversation with any of the ladies, but walked
about the room; then suddenly ringing the bell, she said, "Ceci est
insupportable!" and when the servant appeared, she said: "Tell your
master to come upstairs directly; they have sat long enough at their
wine."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: Afterwards Sir Ralph Abercromby, later Lord Dunfermline,
minister first at Florence, then at Turin.]

CHAPTER XI.

LETTER FROM LORD BROUGHAM--WRITES "MECHANISM OF THE HEAVENS"--ANECDOTE
OF THE ROMAN IMPROVISATRICE--LETTERS FROM SIR JOHN HERSCHEL AND
PROFESSOR WHEWELL--ELECTED HON. MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL
SOCIETY--NOTICE IN THE ACADEMIE DES SCIENCES, AND LETTER FROM M.
BIOT--PENSION--LETTER FROM SIR ROBERT PEEL--BEGINS TO WRITE ON THE
CONNECTION OF THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES--VISIT TO CAMBRIDGE--LETTERS FROM
PROFESSOR SEDGWICK AND LAPLACE.

[After my mother's return home my father received the following
letter from Lord Brougham, which very importantly influenced the
further course of my mother's life. It is dated March 27th, 1827:--]

LETTER FROM LORD BROUGHAM TO DR. SOMERVILLE.

MY DEAR SIR,

I fear you will think me very daring for the design I have formed
against Mrs. Somerville, and still more for making you my advocate
with her; through whom I have every hope of prevailing. There will
be sent to you a prospectus, rules, and a preliminary treatise of
our Society for Diffusing Useful Knowledge, and I assure you I speak
without any flattery when I say that of the two subjects which I
find it most difficult to see the chance of executing, there is
one, which--unless Mrs. Somerville will undertake--none else can,
and it must be left undone, though about the most interesting of the
whole, I mean an account of the Mecanique Celeste; the other is an
account of the Principia, which I have some hopes of at Cambridge.
The kind of thing wanted is such a description of that divine work
as will both explain to the unlearned the sort of thing it is--the
plan, the vast merit, the wonderful truths unfolded or
methodized--and the calculus by which all this is accomplished, and
will also give a somewhat deeper insight to the uninitiated. Two
treatises would do this. No one without trying it can conceive how
far we may carry ignorant readers into an understanding of the
depths of science,