Item 140 - Letter from Hugh James Rose

4 pp.

Brighton - HJR has been very interested in WW's Memoir and condoles with him over his disappointment [WW's and George Airy's problematic attempt to measure the earth's density - 'An Account of Experiments Made at Dolcoath Mine in Cornwall', 1828]. Could WW help him with a library request: 'you know that Pusey [Edward Pusey] has published against me - and you may imagine my surprise when in the January No. of a New York magazine containing a report of Schrockh's lectures, I found a large part of Pusey's book almost word for word. I have had friendly communication with him and have now sent to tell him this and asked him to account for it '. Could WW look up Schrockh and see if he can find certain extracts [list given]: 'This looks formidable' but if WW looks at the index it may only take him a couple of minutes to cast his eyes over the rest. All this 'occurs both in Pusey and Schrockh with the same order, strange to say'. HJR thinks Pusey is a possible plagiarist: 'it is a main part of my argument against him that his reflections on the over-orthodoxy of the old German school (which he makes the cause, by reaction of the Rationalists) are not the fair result of his own examination - but that the tone and the view are those of the modern historians - this I told him before all these strange facts came out'.