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 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 - 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.
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 - JH will be sending WW 'a modified copy of the Maclear [Thomas Maclear] memorial', all he has to do is sign it and return it to JH. C. P. Smyth [Charles Piazzi Smyth] has informed JH that there 'is a provision (by superannuation fund deduction) for his retirement' which means JH has to cancel what has already been done.
Collingwood - JH claims he thought he had sent WW 'my atoms' and encloses another off-print [JH, 'On Atoms' dated 16 Oct. 1860]. Thanks WW for his remarks on his translation of Homer's 'Iliad'. JH asks: 'What is to be done in the matter of this lamentable blow up between [George] Airy and [Edward] Sabine, - Surely A has taken up the matter in a very high handed and violent manner' [GA wants to expel ES as Chairman of the Board of Visitors to the Greenwich Observatory]. JH had been unaware that there had been any bickering at the BAAS.
Collingwood - JH has not been working much on his translation of Homer's 'Iliad'. He will not be attending the BAAS meeting in October: 'that sort of thing is more than I can face now'. De Morgan has sent him a spoof of the opening of book one of the 'Iliad' [JH encloses a copy].
Collingwood - JH does not like book two of Homer's 'Iliad': 'The catalogue of ships is simply abominable - the whole book is such a falling off from book 1 that (but for other characteristic marks) I should scarcely believe is written by the same author'. JH does not want to see any other translations in advance of his own and 'of those I have seen I like my own best'.
Collingwood - JH thanks WW for his remarks on his translation of book one of Homer's 'Iliad': 'I have adopted your suggestions all but one or two'. He has also begun the second book , but has not got far as he is constructing a 'general index catalogue of nebulae' with the aid of George Airy. JH's son Alexander Herschel is a candidate for the Professorship of Natural Philosophy at the Andersonian University of Glasgow: 'If in addition [to signing his certificate] you should think that he would be likely to make a good professor and in that case would express that opinion to the Secretary W. Ambrose...it would be a great help to him'.
Collingwood - Thanks WW for his Plato Vol. 3 [WW's trans. of Plato's Republic, 1861]. JH gives his reply to WW's observations on the beginning of JH's translation of the first book of Homer's 'Iliad' [see JH to WW, 12 Dec. 1861].
Collingwood - JH is preparing 'a popular lecture on the sun adapted to the meridian of our Hawkhurst trades folks and farmers'. He is also producing a translation of the first book of the 'Iliad' into hexameters: 'It is shockingly bald and homely by the side of Pope - but I flatter myself a good deal more like Homer'.
Collingwood - JH sends WW the beginning of his Hexameter translation of book one of the 'Iliad': 'So far as the question as to the nationalisation of the Hexameter goes I am not dissatisfied with it, as there seems to me to be no appearance of constraint, and no material violation of accent in reading the lines but it assuredly does read bald and homely'. However, Homer's diction is also homely and in comparison to Pope is also bald. The English blank verse comes with a class at the end, while the Hexameter makes up for its terminal weakness by its initial form: 'The one is epigrammatic, the other impulsive. The one belongs to a natural and somewhat artificial literature, the other to a nascent and majestic one'.
Collingwood - Thanks WW for his two letters. He did not reply to the last because he did not think it would reach Dublin in time for the BAAS meeting: 'what you say is certainly very satisfactory'. [M. Perranet] called on his way to Paris and showed JH 'a pretty little reflector of [electrosilkened] glass which with about 4 in aperture and some 2 feet focus bore 200 very satisfactorily. It is not a thing to be pooh-poohed as the Dublin meeting seemed disposed to do'. JH is not surprised WW has been ill with the summer's heat, travelling and the BAAS meeting.
Collingwood - Edward Sabine will send WW a draft copy of a report on the progress of the BAAS 'Meteorological and Magnetic Committee' which JH has drawn up. If WW has any objections or anything to add send it directly to ES. JH is sure he will agree to any addition WW or Lloyd [Humphrey Lloyd] may make. JH is feeling too weak and ill to attend the BAAS meeting.
Collingwood - Thanks WW for his account of how 'capillary attraction used to be put in the good old time. I must confess I am not convinced - still less by Young's notice that the column is held up by the tension of the upper surface'. JH is to write a brief biographical sketch of George Peacock for the Royal Society, and needs WW's help with dates and events at Cambridge relating to GP.
Collingwood - 'Cooke's is in the 5th vol of the Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [Josiah Parsons Cooke, 'The Relation Between the Atomic Weights', 1854] Whether his classification is a great new step you are a better judge than I am - It was new to me when I read it'. JH gives a brief review of Cooke's theory and those working in the field. JH would be obliged if WW could send him half a page explaining capillary attraction.
Collingwood - JH encloses a note he got from George Airy with a suggestion identical to the course JH 'had prepared to take having first written to the Sec. of the B. Assoc. to enquire with whom we are to communicate on their part'. If WW and Peacock approve he will write to Edward Sabine accordingly. Has WW any 'ideas' generally on magnetic observations: It strikes JH that a great deal of the existing machinery could be dispensed with and 'what we now need is in the nature of magnetic surveys, with a few fixed establishments to keep up connexion between the past and future'.
JH and Margaret Herschel will be delighted to see WW. He is very pleased to hear that WW is editing Jones' posthumous works - JH has some sheets of RJ's lectures which went to the press but were never published. He is grieved to hear that George Peacock is so ill. 'What a queer book that is of Herbert Spencer!'
35 Bedford Place, Russell Sq. - On the possibility of JH's son (Alexander Herschel) entering Trinity College in October 1855: 'I am sure at present he deserves it - for he is a very good lad and has excellent talents though rather oversensitive and impressionable'.
JH's views of WW's anonymously written Of the Plurality of Worlds: An Essay, 1853: 'I can't give in my adhesion to the doctrine that between this and the angelic there are not some dozen or two grades of intellectual and moral creatures'. As for his own existence it 'is limited now to the one and only idea of making money'.
32 Harley Street - JH, Ryan [Edward Ryan?], J. S. Lefevre, T. L. Hodges and JH have concluded that 'a letter drawn up by Lefevre on a full knowledge of all the circumstances should be signed by some of Jones' friends and handed in to Lord J. Russell personally by Mr. Hodges [concerning RJ's work on the Tithe Commission?].
32 Harley Street - JH hopes to dine with two representatives of French Science in the Jury of Philosophical Instruments on Saturday followed by a visit to Lord Rosse's [William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse] - can WW join them?
Sixty-six lectures on constitutional history written in Winstanley's hand on loose sheets of paper, each headed with a lecture number and title, accompanied by a holograph book list relating to study of the 16th century and an incomplete lecture/review? on George I and his relationship with his Cabinet and Secretaries of State. The items are undated but presumably date from one of Winstanley's tenures at Cambridge, i.e. 1906-14 and 1919-35.
32 Harley Street - JH has made a 'trifling alteration' to WW's tide paper, and if WW does not approve he should inform the printers: 'and so ends my editorship of edn. II' [John Herschel ed., Admiralty Manual of Scientific Enquiry, 1849].
32 Harley Street - JH thinks both WW's and Frederick Beechey's respective forms for tide registry liable to mistakes [John Herschel ed., Admiralty Manual of Scientific Enquiry, 1849]. He therefore proposes an alternative version which he has enclosed.
