Item 58 - William Whewell to Richard Jones

Trinity College - RJ has probably lost his chance this term 'but pray be forthcoming at the beginning of the next' [ concerning his book and possible assistance from the Cambridge press syndicate - 'An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth, and on the Sources of Taxation: Part 1. - Rent', 1831]. The proposition to admit Bachelors to the public library [see WW to RJ, 18 November 1828] was blocked by Geldart [James W. Geldart]: 'If the matter had come to a vote you might have been wanted, for there would have been a strong opposition to the measure and particularly, such is the growing liberality of the age, among the younger masters of arts - you may depend upon it that we lived exactly at the right time for catching all the better influences of the university and that there have been nobody half so wise and enlightened in the later generations. Ask Attree [William Attree - RJ's nephew] about a sermon of Hare's [Julius Hare] at St. Mary's last Sunday; it was very much after the manner of a guess [Julius and Augustus Hare, 'Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers', 1827] but fearfully long; and as there is a sort of Wordsworthian ferment among the boys at present and from other causes 210 of them have petitioned him to print it. Attree is in the list'. The 'animal Geldhart is as you know our Civil Law Professor and is a horrid fellow in the way of all improvement'. Charles Babbage has returned and is ready for his professorship [Lucasian Chair of Mathematics].