Item 148 - William Whewell to Richard Jones

3 pp.

Trinity College - WW will come to visit RJ on the same day as Connop Thirlwall. After London, WW will return back to Lord Braybrook's and to Cambridge again. WW hopes RJ will begin work on his book now that the fiasco over the King's College Professorship is over: 'If you are resolved to maintain your first whim to be a failure I will not fight against you now: but at the same time...it is no bad success for a book not deductive like Ricardo's, but inductive, and in its induction, as you must allow, far from complete, to obtain so much notice as yours has done: and I dare say that half the impression is a great deal more than the Wealth of Nations or Malthus's Population or any book of similar novelty and importance sold in the same time'. McCulloch's review of RJ's book 'gave you or your friends an opportunity of urging your opinions in a polemical form: - that opportunity was lost by your procrastination: - I think the loss was an advantage; and shall think so the more if it urges you on to publish what remains'. RJ once spoke of writing an article for the Philological Museum. He should think of doing it now as Connop Thirlwall 'is rather in want of grist for his mill'.