Letter to R.K. Greville, LL.D. in reply to Professor Balfour / by John Joseph Griffin.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to R.K. Greville, LL.D. in reply to Professor Balfour / by John Joseph Griffin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    7/14 (page 9)
    his Text-Book, was distinctly made on the 11th Feb., 1047, and was part of the barg-aiu for which I paid him £200. This same letter of 3d April, 1019, contains other statements that deserve a short reply, as 1 am discussing cpicstions of veracity : for example— “ The proposal to pi'int a text-book for my class was my own, and you gave in to it, oftering the same sum which yovi had done for a translation. Moreover, you pro- posed to print a large edition of 3000.”—Letter^ p. 15. Both these statements are untrue. I did not offer him first the sum of £200 for a translation, and afiterwards the same sum for his text-book. In his first letter of 4th Jan., 1847, he proposed “ his text-hook.''' I had not then seen him on the subject, nor made him any written offer, nor was any thing said a'bout till our meeting of 11th Feb., 1847—that meeting at which he admits he told me, that he would make the work his own text-book. Finally, I did not propose to print 3000 copies of the Manual, nor did I print that number. I proceed with extracts from the Professor’s letters: — 1849, April 9th.—“I have already told you explicitly, that I cannot part with the copyright of my book, and to this determination I must adhere, not so much on account of supposed pecmiiary benefit, as that I might have the entire control of my Text-Book.” 1849, Ape'll 19th.—“ As my Class meets on the 1st May, and as my Text-Book requires to be in the hands of students by that time, I hope the printer will take care to have copies with the booksellers immediately The Medical Examinations begin on the 23d. The book should have been in the hands of intend- ing graduates before that time.” Professor Balfour states (Pamphlet, p. 14,) that it is sufficiently proved that I did not, even so late as March, 1849, suppose that he had come under any obligation to me to use the Manual as his Text-Book. His proof consists in a New item in a Contract which, on the 28th March, 1849, I proposed that he should enter into, namely :— “ 4. You agree to bring up every addition [my copy of the proposal reads Edition.^ J. J. G.,] of the Text-Book to the state of the Science at the time of its publication, and to write or use in teaching no other text-book.” Now, my explanation of this clause is, that, instead of a New item in a Con- tract^ it was proposed by me as an item in a New Contract. 1 had, at the period refeiTed to, discovered the danger of transacting business with Professor Balfour without a legal Contract, and I therefore fonnally proposed one for his adoption. It related to all the points in dispute betw'een us. It was written hastily on the 28th March, 1849, in reply to a letter from him dated Edinburgh, 27th March, 1849, in which letter he, for the first time, hinted at the possi- bility of his bringing out a new Text-Book for his class. To check this danger, I proposed the clause referred to. It was not a neio thing that was proposed, but a new security. Of course. Professor Balfour refused to execute the proposed contract. He is averse to “ pledges.” It is not my intention to follow Professor Balfoiu- through all the special pleading by which he endeavours to make out that he never pledged himself to use the Manual of Botany as his Text-Book. The admitted facts and the circumstantial evidence, that I submit to you, prove that he deliberately imOMTSED to do so; that he 80 si'Oke Am> acted as to make me uelieve