Collingwood - Business concerning Thomas Maclear's testimonial and a mistake regarding a provision for his retirement. WW is to annex his signature where indicated [see JH to WW, 23 Dec. 1862]. Could WW get Challis's [James Challis] signature also and then return the form to JH.
Collingwood - Thanks WW for his lectures on Political Economy. JH can imagine WW in his cape and gown lecturing to the Prince of Wales seated on a stool, 'note book in hand...drinking in the words of wisdom'. Regarding the book: 'So then the good old theory of Rent is exploded and auxiliary capital is the word! Well well live and learn'. Illness in the family.
2 Orchard St., Portman Sq. - WW's paper on Crystallography was read at the Royal Society and an abstract will be distributed at the next meeting ['A General Method of Calculating the Angles Made by Any Planes of Crystals, and the Laws According to which They are Formed', Phil. Trans., 1825]. JH did not hear whether WW had made any reference to Levy's paper in Brewster's journal. Because of the similarity with his paper, WW should refer to it in his abstract.
Collingwood - Thanks WW for his annotations to JH's translation of Homer's 'Iliad', and shows WW where he thinks he has misread him. Book five is nearly finished but JH does not like it. Maria Herschel hopes to be well enough to accept WW's invitation - along with Amelia Herschel - to Trinity Lodge. JH attaches a short verse of translation.
Collingwood - JH sends WW his translation of book six of the 'Iliad', and thanks him for his 'just and welcome' notes on his translation of book five. JH has compared his translation to others, and prefers his own since it does not 'gallop so oppressively...which always makes me seasick and puts me in mind of making game'. Maria, Amelia and William Herschel have returned from their stay at the Whewells. Margaret Herschel is now off the sick list but JH has had terrible bronchitis.
Collingwood - Thanks WW for his remarks concerning JH's translation of Homer's 'Iliad', and gives his reply to WW's comments. JH is thinking of stopping at book six and getting his translations printed. However he has started book seven - 'not to mind a pleasing book. Homer is too hard upon Hector in making him so evidently no match for Ajax'. JH has given WW's friend Mr Kindt [Hermann Kindt] 'a castigation' for criticising Pope.
Collingwood - JH sends WW book seven of his translation of Homer's 'Iliad' and has begun work on book eight. JH has not enjoyed translating book seven and is 'conscious of having done it less 'piously' than the others'. Book six has really benefited from some of WW's suggestions. William Herschel is to be married on Thursday. JH can not get rid of his illness [bronchitis - see JH to WW, 2 April 1864].
Thanks WW for his remarks [on JH's translation of Homer's 'Iliad' - book seven], and gives his response to them.
Collingwood - JH was not sure whether WW was abroad or not: 'So I now (taking it for granted that you are in College) send book xi which I finished not long since and am now advanced some way in book xii'. JH is thinking of publishing all the books he has translated so far of Homer's 'Iliad'. JH is still ill with bronchitis which he has now had since mid-January: 'when it goes , I fancy it will take me with it'.
Collingwood - JH sends WW his translation of book fourteen of Homer's 'Iliad', and hopes WW is not getting too tired of the subject: 'for the very name of a translation of Homer is beginning to nauseate the Public'. JH notes that yet another hexameter translation is coming out 'by a Mr. Saxton or Simpson? or some such name!...I spare you that it is dead weight'. JH is still suffering from bronchitis. JH does not think he will be able to get his translation printed: 'Longman whom I contacted about printing the 1st half as vol. i. fights shy of it altogether and talks about the general prejudice against Hexameters etc'. William Herschel and his wife have arrived in Calcutta.
The wedding of Maria is fixed for the 12th of next month: 'The more we see of the young man the better we like him'. [Maria] can thus no longer take up WW's invitation to stay at the Lodge but Amelia can stay some time in early November. Julia Herschel is in Switzerland. JH has nearly finished his translation of all the books of Homer's 'Iliad'.
Collingwood - If JH's newly married daughter [Maria] and husband are now with WW could he give Maria the annexed. The wedding 'went off very prettily'. A Mr Prescott, a man of high scientific learning, very cultivated and an agreeable person, is going to take up residence in Cambridge. Prescott is an old Trinitarian and would like to be introduced to WW.
Collingwood - JH has sent WW his translation of book twenty-four of Homer's 'Iliad', and does not want WW 'to be sparing in criticism'. JH does not think he will find a publisher for it. JH is expecting Maria [JH's daughter] and her husband next Monday. Amelia Herschel will be escorted to WW's by Alexander Herschel who will then go straight to Norwich to give some lectures.
JH's reasons for declining to become a candidate for the Lucasian Chair: He does 'not wish to devote myself exclusively or par excellence to any one branch of science - perhaps too a consciousness that I prefer physical to mathematical science'. Any science he does do 'I had rather should be considered as done an amateur than as a matter of duty and profession'. JH has written to [James] Wood to canvass for Babbage. JH has become 'an ultra-Huttonian in regard of long geological periods'.
Collingwood - JH is having problems finding a publisher for his translation of Homer's 'Iliad'. JH has used WW's name in order to send Matthew Arnold - whom he does not know personally - books one and two, but fears they have different notions of English hexameters. Bella [Isabella] and Amelia enjoyed their stay at WW's. JH is feeling very old. He is pleased WW thinks Jevons [William Stanley Jevons] has taken too gloomy a view of the coal question, although JH cannot help thinking that 'there is course for very serious thoughts of our national future'. When coal supplies run out 'our civilisation will then have to fall'.
Collingwood - Could WW sound out Macmillan the publishers and see if they would be interested in publishing his translation of Homer's 'Iliad' - even though so many translations have now appeared. Another possibility would be to 'print (with some other pieces) selected passages, comprising all what are usually considered Homer's great passages'.
JH thanks WW for his notes to JH's translation of book twenty-four of Homer's 'Iliad': He has carried out all but one or two of WW's suggestions. JH thinks Homer must have written other books due to the abrupt end.
Collingwood - Macmillan are to publish JH's translation of Homer's 'Iliad' and he wishes to dedicate it to WW. On WW's suggestion he sent books one and two to Prof. Arnold [Matthew Arnold]. Bella [Isabella Herschel] 'never ceases talking of you and Mrs. Douglas's kindness to her at Lowestoft'. JH has had another severe attack of bronchitis.
6 Ashley Rd., Cannonbury - Alexander Herschel securing William Whewell's support and signature for a testimonial letter for his stand as a candidate for a lectureship on Natural Philosophy now vacant at the Andersonian Institute at Glasgow.
Covent Garden - Due to the death of James Grahame and the departure of Patrick Stewart to India, John Herschel needs to appoint two new trustees to the Herschels trust fund [£12,000 in 3 per cent reduced Bank annuuities]. As WW is one of the other two trustees they need his signature.
11 Canonbury St., Islington - WI has read WW's 'beautiful Bridgewater treatise [Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology, 4th edn. 1839] with great delight and pleasure' and would like his autograph. WI suggests that sound behaves in the same way as pebbles hitting water cause circles: 'why should not sounds pass through the air and cause displacements around in like manner?' Its reach would depend on the force of the sound and the resistance it encountered.
Trinity College, Oxford - Thanks WW for 'correcting the errors of the Post, and transmitting the curious brochure sent by my friend Mr. Wilson'. JI was to go with Mr. Wilson on a barrow-hunting excursion but has decided not to: 'But if any body can bring a Druid out of his grave Mr. Wilson has the perseverance to do it'.
20 Row Hampton St., Pentonville - JI would like an explanation of a short passage in WW's discussion of the conception of fluidity, given in his Thoughts on the Study of Mathematics as Part of a Liberal Education [1835]. On page 30 WW makes a citation which he describes as typical reasoning 'among our mathematicians': ''A fluid is a body, the parts of which are perfectly moveable in all directions; if therefore a force act in any direction upon any particle of it, there must be, acting on the same particle, equal forces in all other directions.'' WW then writes 'Now this is palpably a fallacy. If a particle be kept at rest by forces acting on it, the only consequence which follows from the laws of mechanics is, that it must be acted on by pairs of equal and opposite forces: we cannot hence infer the smallest necessity that the lateral forces should be equal to the vertical ones'.] JI does not know why the citation is inconsistent with WW's reasoning: 'Is not the citation true of a particle of a fluid, although that particle be subjected to the action of any pairs of forces such as you describe, which impress no motion in any direction? Is not the condition of the particle the same as if it was entirely free from the action of any such forces?' JI asks WW: 'Is the citation from any of my papers? If so, have the goodness to specify the passage?' JI suspects that the real reason WW included this in his pamphlet was 'to support the principle which is universally assumed as sufficient for the equilibrium of a homogenous mass fluid at liberty, namely, that a fluid mass is necessarily in equilibrium when every particle is pressed equally by all canals down from it to the upper surface?...That the equilibrium of the mass is a self-evident consequence of the Principle of the canals, or, if you please, of that principle conjoined with perpendicularity of the forces to the upper surface. See Prof. Airy's Tracts, 2nd edit. p.146, 28'. JI wants WW to specify what he intended by this passage.
Boston, USA - CTJ's place in the history of the inductive science of physiology, relating to the discovery of etherism. He gives an account of his experience with ether. His experiments 'led me to conclude that the nerves of sensation were paralysed by the ether, and I ventured to declare confidently to my friends, that I had discovered a means of averting the pain of surgical operations'. CTJ wants WW to sanction his claim as the discoverer of the application of ether in surgical operations.
Calais - JH has told the printers to send WW the proofs of his article on light ['Treatise on Light', Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, 1827], and is very obliged to WW for undertaking the superintendence of the press in his absence. JH has been careful with the history: 'I do not want to take on myself a task so insidious as balancing the merits and settling or even stating the claims of men so jealous as Brewster and Biot and Arago'.
Boston - CTJ thanks WW for his letter and interest in his claims to the discovery of etherism [see CTJ to WW, 24 April 1849]. He is sorry that WW has given up the idea of of doing an inductive history of physiology. CTJ has just completed his Report on the Geology and Mineralogy of the Copper and Silver bearing lands of the US and Lake Superior and submitted it to the Government. He gives a description of the content of his geological and mineralogical survey.
Christ's College Lodge - JK thanks WW for the copy of his 'Mineralogical Classification' [An Essay on Mineralogical Classification and Nomenclature, 1828]. He hopes again to receive the opinions of the Philosophical Society at Christ's Lodge.
College Museum, Edinburgh - Due to official duties at the College he will be unable to attend the BAAS meeting at Cambridge [the letter has a printed picture of the internal arrangement of the museum].
21 Royal Circus, Edinburgh - RJ would like a copy of WW's lecture to the Society of Arts [The General Bearing of the Great Exhibition of the Progress of Art and Science, 1851], and would like to print it in the 'Edinburgh Philosophical Journal'. Bronchitis has left him feeling very weak.
The College, Ely - TJ has enclosed a specimen of an unpublished method of marking Latin quantities, which he devised in 1848. He hopes WW's favourable opinion of it will add to its general adoption.