Caernarvon - The day after WW left Cambridge he reached Jones [Richard Jones]. He spent the next week sightseeing: Portsmouth, Stonehenge and several cathedrals. On his travels he picked up four of his pupils and they all proceeded on to Snowdon where they were joined by the rest of his group: 'The Celts do not please me any better on a nearer view, they seem a very primitive and single headed but a very stupid race'. If the 'new tales of my Landlord' are published could JCH get Deighton [Cambridge book publishers] to send them hither. He would also like Monk's pamphlet [James H. Monk, A Vindication of the University of Cambridge, from the Reflections of Sir J. E. Smith, 1818] and the new number of the Edinburgh Review if it is out. WW received a letter from Monk offering him the Lectureship [Mathematics] which he thinks he will accept.
George Green and EB are grateful to WW for all his help with the printing and distribution of GG's memoir. Sends WW another memoir to WW by GG: 'the Cambridge Transactions ought to lead all others in mathematics. I am convinced that the want of them is deemed an affectation - You are right about practical analysis - the age of the Warings, the Quixotic Chivalry of science is gone for ever'. George Peacock's algebra - '(to use a comparison) he still begins the Differential Calculus from Velocities'. Richard Jones 'is certainly a very able man - his idea of the labouring Classes gradually coming under the domain of Capitalists, is striking and true'. The 'moral machinery' of industrialisation 'has not kept pace with the population'. WW's Bridgewater Treatise 'is very striking - It certainly places the whole affair on a new and solid foundation'. For EB 'the Belief of a Deity from a view of nature is a matter of impression - what brings direct conviction to my own mind would appear absurd to another, and I never could announce it without hesitating'.
Horsham - Information and a query concerning his work on inscriptions ['Inscriptiones Graecae Vetustissianae', 1825]. HJR would be curious to attend Julius Hare's lectures: 'I suppose that Plato illustrated by Coleridge with excursuses on Kant will be the least of Hare's feats'. If HJR is at the Cambridge election he will vote for Lord Hervey. HJR is pleased Richard Jones is not going to marry - 'the woman is old[,] ugly, stupid[,] vulgar, poor, in bad health and beset by brothers and sisters who are really too horrible'.
Could JCH check WW's bank balance and if it is adequate give the two drafts attached to this letter of £100 to John Claydon. WW wants JCH to research a query of Richard Jones's concerning the type of labourer who used to farm ancient Greece.
CT has been looking over Jones's [Richard Jones] paper in Rose's [Hugh James Rose] magazine, it 'seems full of wisdom and Temperance'. However to modify the system will probably just increase the 'cry of discontentment which law must suppress so often and custom reconcile by so long usage before submission and permanancy is resumed: - the Truth is, that the want of us people is really a high, religious and judaic feeling and belief that the Tythe is an offering to the Lord'. Could not strong Galvanic power be 'applied to the earth or soil found in mining countrys applied to the actual rock or substance in which Gold is found, would it not produce Gold and the Philosophers stone be found out!!' CT introduces a pupil from Rugby school who is coming to Trinity this term.
WW would rejoice to see HJR move near to Cambridge. WW met Richard Jones and saw a great deal of him for two or three days: 'He took very strongly to metaphysics and happening to have made up his mind that the two words "necessary truth" ought not to be placed in immediate contact' proceeded to abuse the author of a book which made this connection: 'Not content with pouring forth all his own rage upon them, he went about to all his friends, protesting like a true parson (with your fervor) that church and king, the cause of sound doctrine and good practice, were all endangered by this unnatural union - I endeavoured in vain to appease him by shewing that neither reason nor custom had forbid the connexion'. Has HJR heard 'of a most material revolution which has taken place at St. John's - the spirit of abolishing privileges & equalising rights has entered even there - the last place one should expect to find it. In short they have got a King's letter, one of the first instruments his Majesty signed, abolishing all restrictions upon their fellowships so that they are now as open as ours. The king's power of course extends only to the foundation fellowship but they seem to imagine that eventually they will be able to open all - this is a most material improvement in their constitution and will I suppose if possible make them more loyal than before'. How is HJR's work on inscriptions progressing? There has on the whole been no shortage of material for the new Society [Cambridge Philosophical Society], but they have all been rather bored by 'an endless paper of good old Farish's [William Farish] upon what he calls "isometrical perspective"'.
![Letter from Charles Ker to [James?] Heaviside](/uploads/r/trinity-college-library/6/b/f/6bfd12533008ffe159dce379eef2ad81e7234afad067dbfc672f41d57ddf12b0/448.Add.Ms.a.207.156.front.tmb.jpg)
Lincoln's Inn - Ker has always been very proud of having brought Jones [Richard Jones?] and Lord Brougham together, particularly since the latter did not really want to. Nevertheless, after meeting Brougham admitted that Jones 'was one of the most remarkable men he had met'.
JCH congratulates WW on the number of Trinity wranglers, but is disappointed WW will not be coming to visit him at Hurstmonceux. JCH has not heard anything further regarding the Coleridge prize essay [see JCH to WW, 24 Oct. 1834]. Richard Jones 'would certainly be an admirable person for Hayleybury [Professor of Political Economy at the East India College]. My acquaintance with Charles Grant is very slight. However, should he come back to the Board of Control, before the new professor is appointed, I will write to him about Jones's claims'.
WW has not yet taken steps to send HJR the sermons he requested. WW has not been able to find the first memoir HJR wanted regarding his work on inscriptions. 'I hope you are going on well and bursting into birth' ['Inscriptiones Graecae Vetustissimae/ Collegit, et Observationes tum Aliorum tum suas Adjecit Hugo Jacobus Rose', 1825]. When is Richard Jones to be married?: 'I sent him down some of the volumes of the French Encyclopaedia lately to establish his political economy'. WW gives a copy of one of the inscriptions he has found.
Written from Haileybury. Concerns the candidatures of Prince Albert and the Earl of Powis for the office of Chancellor of the university.
Slough - Richard Jones's book has safely reached him [An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation, 1831]: 'It is long since I have met with a work on P.E. [Political Economy] that is intelligible to my obtuse faculties, but this speaks plainly and not in parables. I am afraid it is almost so plain that people won't see how deep it goes'. Thanks for 'the No. of the British containing your views of science and of Lyell' ['Charles Lyell's 'Principles of Geology' volume 1'. British Critic 9, 1831]. JH does not think in many fields of science 'Britain is really the preeminent nation she was - In geology no doubt we take a decided lead, but as to the more other great departments I am not convinced'. JH thinks WW has been too critical of Lyell. Dionysius Lardner has informed JH that WW is to review him ['A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy', 1830]. JH recommends WW to read a 'book by Dr. Abercrombie of Edinburgh on the intellectual faculties (or some such title)'. JH gives a short critique of Jones' simplistic expose of Ricardo and Malthus's doctrine of rent.
Could JCH send WW his letters to the Athenaeum Club. An update on WW's possible plans to go to Germany. Richard Jones 'holds that the story of Wordsworth and his daughter is certainly true in the essential points'.
Richard Jones recommends 'Owens Dictionary and Grammar' to WW, 'saying that without their assistance he did not think you would make much progress in the language of the ancient Britons'. DLM is back in London and has met a student from the University of [Louvain] only recently re-established in the Netherlands: 'my informant said their course of mathematical reading was confined to the works of Lacroix, tho' in Algebra and Fluxions they were obliged to content themselves with the Manuscripts of their Professors'.
WW will not be able to visit JCH. Richard Jones is a candidate to succeed Thomas Malthus at Haileybury: 'I hope he will prosper both for his sake and for that of the institution, for his classifications of the forms and attributes of the various national systems of Europe and Asia is the proper instruction for those who go from us to manage India'.
The Vice-Chancellor has informed WW that they are not disposed favourably toward JCH's scheme [the Coleridge prize, see WW to JCH, 27 Oct. 1834]: 'the objection is not to any accidental and extraneous part of the scheme, but to the name of Coleridge'. His name is still associated with his earlier reputation than with 'the Christian philosophy which he has impressed upon so many in his riper years'. Richard Jones has been appointed the new Professor of Political Economy at Haileybury. However with the uncertain future of the College the position may not last long.
Review in The Homeward Mail 6 Apr. 1859 and The Hertford Mercury of 16 Apr. 1859, accompanied by two printed tables of wheat rents.
WW sends HJR his books including the 3rd edition of his Bridgewater Treatise. WW wishes Richard Jones would send him his second volume on political economy [the never completed sequel to his 'An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation', 1831]. 'As I am ambitious of imposing right mechanical principles into your pupils I send a note of the order in which my numerous books on that matter are to be taken. There is still wanting a 6th volume to complete the series, of which I shall publish a new edition as soon as I can find time'.
Tithe Commission - Ollivant [Alfred Ollivant?] is at present vicar of the parish which RJ's 'illustrious race came from in Montgomeryshire & I have seen something of him - not any like enough to form any opinion however of his talents or temper'. RJ enjoyed his stay in Edinburgh 'with Lord Jeffery for a commentator on all "people and things"'.
Lancaster - WW has 'written to Jones [Richard Jones] and have told him that if he can do the service you mention to Mr Wordsworth the poet it will be a very great pleasure to me to have suggested it' [concerning the application of William Wordsworth's son for a position on the Tithe Commission?]. Hopefully Jones will be established in his position on the Commission by this time: 'It has given me very great gratification, not only because I rejoice at the prosperity of an old and valued friend; but because I think it a most appropriate appointment. His general views and his knowledge of details alike fit him for it...The ministers mercifully cared for the measure only so far as it afforded popular outcry, and did not consider themselves the guardians of the interests of the church so far as legislators ought to do; and the conservatives were too peevish and perverse to make the best of what must be done; so that if some one had not asked for us, we should have been crushed in the conflict of parties. Jones's influence, activity and assurance, which I saw in operation daily, were truly admirable. I may add as another reason for any satisfaction that it appears likely that it will require a person who has studied the like as thoroughly as he has to carry it into effect in the most beneficial way'. The only misgiving WW has is that if Jones had not have been appointed HJR may have been: 'I think this must be generally felt; and I will venture to tell you that I know it is felt by Jones so far as to dash his satisfaction at his own appointment in a very considerable degree. I have always told him, that I was sure you would perceive, at least as clearly as other persons, the rightness of the selection'. WW thinks it 'is time that the church should do something soon if she intends to do it at all - for persons of your standing and mine who have been of any use to her, for we are no longer young men. I hope your turn will come before long, for I have yet to make out my case by repairing the philosophy of the age; which I am going to set about in reality'.
Queen's College - CBC thanks WW for a copy of his Six Lectures on Political Economy. He follows the Ricardian view of rent and does not accept WW's or Richard Jones's criticism of it: 'I do not admit the force of the objection that in the great majority of cases throughout the world the Ricardian rent is not the rent actually paid...the Ricardian rent is the rack-rent plus the tenants rates and taxes'. CBC sees no problem applying this to any type of agriculture. WW's 5th lecture is 'most interesting and satisfactory, but the late rise in rents does not mitigate against Ricardo's theorems as deduced from his definition of rent'.
Item 1, a letter from Whewell to Julius Charles Hare, does not concern Richard Jones or his book.
Whewell, William (1794-1866), college head and writer on the history and philosophy of scienceJH has asked someone [page torn] to review the book [Literary Remains, Consisting of Lectures and Tracts on Political Economy, of the late Rev Richard Jones, 1859] in the Edinburgh Review. He has also had a copy sent to Sir James Stephen - although JH has heard that Stephen has been involved in an accident while 'on one of his walks'. Further, Stephen wants nothing more to do with the Edinburgh, while of the book he writes: ''I have read a considerable part of it and the result is to convince me that he [Richard Jones] was a vigorous and original thinker, but an indifferent writer, one of those men whose real function or fate it is, to bring together the raw material for better Artists to work up into popular books. John Mill, has, I think, largely used him for this purpose''. JH concludes from this that Stephen would not be averse to a review and that it would be sufficiently favourable. He would also introduce some remarks about the Indian Civil Service. JH gives information concerning notices for the book.
In reference to [Clarke's?] letter concerning Whewell and Richard Jones's view of Ricardo's theory of rent.