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(With an envelope.)

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Transcript

Trinity College | Cambridge
12 March 1928

Dear Semple,

Neither timidus nor any word expressive of character would suit Hor. art. 114 or any of the four following verses, and it would not match heros, which is not such a word: it is applied to Midas in Ouid. met. XI 106 and to Actaeon when running away in III 198.

Neville was here some months ago, and I was glad to hear from him that you seemed to like Reading.

Yours sincerely
A. E. Housman.

[Direction on envelope:] W. H. Semple Esq. | The University | Reading

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The envelope, which bears a 1½d. stamp, was postmarked at Cambridge at 9 p.m. on 12 Mar.

The list gives the name of each recipient, and a brief note of what they were sent of Cayley's papers by Rouse Ball. The copies of letters sent to recipients are in most case form letters, explaining that on the death of Cayley's widow his papers were put into Rouse Ball's hands with a request that he should destroy or dispose of them as he saw fit; 'all involving matter which might be published was dealt with years ago, and what was preserved has no interest beyond the fact that it is a specimen of his work'. Longer letters were sent to G. T. Bennett, also asking whether he would like to see the models of Archimedean and other solids made by W. W. Taylor, and to D. E. Smith, also taking the opportunity to send a paper on Euler which might be of interest to the American Mathematical Monthly. A long second letter to E. H. Neville gives details of the nature of Cayley's papers, and the principles by which Rouse Ball decided what should be destroyed: 'As for letters to him, of which many hundreds were put in my hands, I laid down the rule that in general such letters should be destroyed or sent back to the writers if they were alive'; lists the few exceptions; the letter also suggests that Neville take a look at Monge's Card-Shuffling Problem.

The Copse, Sonning-on-Thames.—The enclosed (3/40) was written with reluctance, as he felt the task ought to have been attempted by someone who knew Forsyth in the nineties.

(Undated. Acknowledged 6 Sept.)

166 Castle Hill, Reading. - Thanks Rouse Ball for the Cayley MSS; has presented one of them to the College Library but is keeping the others for himself. Describes the new library building at Reading, and the difficulty in building up a collection of mathematical books. Postscript asking if there are any spare signatures of Cayley which could be preserved with the MS; 'I fear I am a shameless beggar'.

166 Castle Hill, Reading. - Thanks Rouse Ball for the Cayley letter, which he will deposit in the College Library. Has 'never tackled the problem of Monge [on shuffling cards, discussed in Mathematical recreations and essays] How your book has grown: this is pp. 116-118 in my copy (1896!)'