Chapter 3

swine. Very odd! chapters tallying, and verses so nearly: is the versification rightly managed? Examination is sure to show that there are monstrous inconsistencies in the mode of division, which being corrected, the verses tally as well as the chapters. And then how comes it? I cannot go on, {52} for I have no gift at torturing a coincidence, but I would lay twopence, if I could make a bet--which I never did in all my life--that some one or more of my readers will try it. Some people say that the study of chances tends to awaken a spirit of gambling: I suspect the contrary. At any rate, I myself, the writer of a mathematical book and a comparatively popular book, have never laid a bet nor played for a stake, however small: not one single time.

It is useful to record such instances as I have given, with precision and on the solemn word of the recorder. When such a story as that of Flamsteed is told, _a priori_ assures us that it could not have been: the story may have been a _ben trovato_,[99] but not the bundle. It is also useful to establish some of the good jokes which all take for inventions. My friend Mr. J. Bellingham Inglis,[100] before 1800, saw the tobacconist's carriage with a sample of tobacco in a shield, and the motto _Quid rides_[101] (_N._ & _Q._, 3d S. i. 245). His father was able to tell him all about it. The tobacconist was Jacob Brandon, well known to the elder Mr. Inglis, and the person who started the motto, the instant he was asked for such a thing, was Harry Calender of Lloyd's, a scholar and a wit. My friend Mr. H. Crabb Robinson[102] remembers the King's Counsel (Samuel Marryat) who took the motto _Causes produce effects_, when his success enabled him to start a carriage.

The coincidences of errata are sometimes very remarkable: it may be that the misprint has a sting. The death of Sir W. Hamilton[103] of Edinburgh was known in London on a Thursday, and the editor of the _Athenaeum_ wrote to {53} me in the afternoon for a short obituary notice to appear on Saturday. I dashed off the few lines which appeared without a moment to think: and those of my readers who might perhaps think me capable of contriving errata with meaning will, I am sure, allow the hurry, the occasion, and my own peculiar relation to the departed, as sufficient reasons for believing in my entire innocence. Of course I could not see a proof: and two errata occurred. The words "addition to Stewart"[104] require "_for_ addition to _read_ edition of." This represents what had been insisted on by the Edinburgh publisher, who, frightened by the edition of Reid,[105] had stipulated for a simple reprint without notes. Again "principles of logic and mathematics" required "_for_ mathematics _read_ metaphysics." No four words could be put together which would have so good a title to be Hamilton's motto.

April 1850, found in the letter-box, three loose leaves, well printed and over punctuated, being