OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN BY HIS WIFE SOPHIA ELIZABETH DE MORGAN WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS LETTERS LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1882 All rights reserved PREFACE. I NEED hardly say that in the following pages I have not attempted a scientific memoir. My object has been to supply that part of my husband's life the material for which would not be within the reach of another biographer. The selection from his letters might have been much larger, if I could in all cases have inserted those of his correspondents. Without these many would have been incomprehensible. As it is, I may have over-estimated the attention which readers will be disposed to give to them. My rule in choosing the letters has been to take those which are most characteristic of the writer, and in this way to give to readers already acquainted with him through his writings a more familiar knowledge of him as a man. His connection with University College, and the events which led to his leaving it, are necessarily made prominent. So long a time has elapsed since their occurrence, and I have known so little during that time of the Institution, that I cannot even surmise how the present Council would in like circumstances share the convictions or confirm the action of its predecessors. After the lapse of sixteen years I trust that the narrative will provoke no revival of the somewhat acrimonious controversy which ensued. It might perhaps have been in some ways better that Mr. De Morgan should have published a fuller statement of his views at the time, and have thus left less to be done by his biographer. But he had several reasons for not doing this. He refrained partly from reluctance to add to the censures which were being pronounced on the College, perhaps too emphatically, even by well-wishers, and re-echoed by its enemies with unconcealed satisfaction; partly by the feeling that he had made no sacrifice of a pecuniary nature in resigning his Professorship; but, as I think, chiefly from weariness and disappointment, and from a desire to have done with the Institution as soon as possible. Nothing, not even a distinct recantation of the measure which made him leave, would have induced him to resume his chair, for he would have held such a recantation to be but another concession to expediency in deference to the storm unexpectedly raised. Should any portion of what I have written appear uncalled for, it must be remembered that I could not touch my husband's side of the question without placing the whole before my readers. The insertion of the lengthy justification of the Council by members of the Senate will, I trust, exempt me from the charge of having suppressed arguments on the other side. Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 1882. SOPHIA ELIZABETH DE MORGAN. CONTENTS. Place of Birth-Voyage to England-Family-Schools and School Days-Early Religious Teaching-Trinity College, Cam- bridge Reading and Study-Mother's Anxiety-Teachers- William Frend-Religious Discussions-Stoke Newington-Can- didature for Professorship — University in London - Its Foundation-Its Principle-Opening of Classes—Introductory Lecture Disagreements between Professors and Council- Paris-Colonel Briggs-East India Service-Dr. Briggs' Residence in Guilford Street—Astronomical Society-Efforts to raise Astronomy-Baily-Herschel-Airy-De Morgan elected Hon. Secretary-Astronomical Society's Charter- Captain Smyth-Sir James South-Friendships in Astro- nomical Society-Mr. Baily's House-Sir James South's Quarrels Nautical Almanac-Standard Scale-' Elements of Arithmetic' — Charles Butler-Archdeacon Thorp - Book- collecting · Hachette Amicable Assurance Company |