Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Singular specimens of the Edinburgh practice of criticism. 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.
10/32 page 10
![ceive it has acted on the mind of Professor Henfrey, (Appendix, No. 6,) who refers to it as to a giievance. I put your work, instead of Mr. Don’s, into the Encyclopaadia, because it was a newer, and, as I thought, a better work. I suppressed Mr. Don’s article that it might not compete with yours. How does that aggrieve you ? Both copyrights being mine, I used the work that I liked best. There is, however, one point on which I can comprehend your difficulty. It is, that the man who can make so many strange mistakes in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and English, as exist in your First Edition, may well object to have his work brought into close proximity with those of the chief scholars of Oxford and Cambridge, some of whom might be a little diverted to be told by an Edinburgh Professor, that means draivn; that t'Ki^ means a ring- and that fero and mean to hear. If the Second Edition of the Manual had been read before it was reviewed* it could have been discovered, that 409 errors had been corrected; that the Helt)rew, though still incorrect, was more correct than in the Ekst Edition; that the Greek, Latin, and English, were freed from hundreds of errors, and that the work was, in other respects, precisely the same as the fii’st edition. But the Review states,—1) that the imperfections remain uncorrected ; 2) that there are imperfections of a more serious nature [than those in the First Edition]; 3) that the errors are multiplied; 4) that there is nothing new in this edition deserving of the slightest commendation; 5) that m all instances of alteration and attempted emendation, the severest censure is due for the utter want of judgment and knowledge of the science; 6) that certain changes of a sufficiently odd and remarkable character have been introduced, which utterly destroy all confidence in the book as a work of reference ; 7) that the work has been rendered ridiculous by bad editing; 8) that Professor Balfour’s writings are distorted, and his name is associated with a volume of bhmders which have been brought together by other hands, &c. &c. &c. It is unnecessary for me to characterise a “ Review” got up on this plan. I must add a few words respecting the mickoscopes that were, at my desire, described and figured in the Appendix to the Second Edition. Your Review states, that “these are certainly not the kinds of microscopes wliicli owr his- tologists of the present day [the language is felicitous!] would recommend more especially, one having access to the excellent instruments made by Powell, Ross, and Smith, in London, and by Oberhauser and other first-rate opticians in Paris.” I am far from undervaluing the microscopes made by such men as ]\fr. Ross, any more than I undervalue the telescope made by Lord Rossc. “ Our Astrono- mers of the present day ” are perhaps right in recommending Lord Rosse’s tele- scope ; and I believe that Mr. Ross’s microscopes deserve their high character. * That eminent Edinburgh Reviewer, the Rev. Sydney Smith, is said to have advised somebody never to read a book before he reviewed it, lest he sliould be prejudiced. I presume that, upon such excellent authority, this principle is followed by the critics of the North British Agriculturist^ whose morals seem to be derived from Dean Swift’s Advice to Servants.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28044009_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
