The principles of Algebra. By William Frend.[441] London, 1796, 8vo.
Second Part, 1799.
This Algebra, says Dr. Peacock,[442] shows "great distrust {197} of the
results of algebraical science which were in existence at the time when it
was written." Truly it does; for, as Dr. Peacock had shown by full
citation, it makes war of extermination upon all that distinguishes algebra
from arithmetic. Robert Simson[443] and Baron Maseres[444] were Mr. Frend's
predecessors in this opinion.
The genuine respect which I entertained for my father-in-law did not
prevent my canvassing with perfect freedom his anti-algebraical and
anti-Newtonian opinions, in a long obituary memoir read at the Astronomical
Society in February 1842, which was written by me. It was copied into the
_Athenaeum_ of March 19. It must be said that if the manner in which algebra
_was_ presented to the learner had been true algebra, he would have been
right: and if he had confined himself to protesting against the imposition
of attraction as a fundamental part of the existence of matter, he would
have been in unity with a great many, including Newton himself. I wish he
had preferred amendment to rejection when he was a college tutor: he wrote
and spoke English with a clearness which is seldom equaled.
His anti-Newtonian discussions are confined to the preliminary chapters of
his _Evening Amusements_,[445] a series of astronomical lessons in nineteen
volumes, following the moon through a period of the golden numbers.
There is a mistake about him which can never be destroyed. It is constantly
said that, at his celebrated trial in 1792, for sedition and opposition to
the Liturgy, etc., he was _expelled_ from the University. He was
_banished_. People cannot see the difference; but it made all the
difference to {198} Mr. Frend. He held his fellowship and its profits till
his marriage in 1808, and was a member of the University and of its Senate
till his death in 1841, as any Cambridge Calendar up to 1841 will show.
That they would have expelled him if they could, is perfectly true; and
there is a funny story--also perfectly true--about their first proceedings
being under a statute which would have given the power, had it not been
discovered during the proceedings that the statute did not exist. It had
come so near to existence as to be entered into the Vice-Chancellor's book
for his signature, which it wanted, as was not seen till Mr. Frend exposed
it: in fact, the statute had never actually passed.
There is an absurd mistake in Gunning's[446] _Reminiscences of Cambridge_.
In quoting a passage of Mr. Frend's pamphlet, which was very obnoxious to
the existing Government, it is printed that the poor market-women
complained that they were to be _scotched_ a quarter of their wages by
taxation; and attention is called to the word by its being three times
printed in italics. In the pamphlet it is "sconced"; that very common old
word for fined or mulcted.
Lord Lyndhurst,[447] who has [1863] just passed away under a load of years
and honors, was Mr. Frend's private pupil at Cambridge. At the time of the
celebrated trial, he and two others amused themselves, and vented the
feeling which was very strong among the undergraduates, by chalking the
walls of Cambridge with "Frend for ever!" While thus engaged in what, using
the term legally, we are probably to call his first publication, he and his
friends were surprised by the proctors. Flight and chase followed of
course: Copley and one of the others, Serjeant Rough,[448] escaped: the
{199} third, whose name I forget, but who afterwards, I have been told was
a bishop,[449] being lame, was captured and impositioned. Looking at the
Cambridge Calendar to verify the fact that Copley was an undergraduate at
the time, I find that there are but two other men in the list of honors of
his year whose names are now widely remembered. And they were both
celebrated schoolmasters; Butler[450] of Harrow, and Tate[451] of Richmond.
But Mr. Frend had another noted pupil. I once had a conversation with a
very remarkable man, who was generally called "Place,[452] the tailor," but
who was politician, political economist, etc., etc. He sat in the room
above his shop--he was then a thriving master tailor at Charing
Cross--surrounded by books enough for nine, to shame a proverb. The blue
books alone, cut up into strips, would have measured Great Britain for
oh-no-we-never-mention-'ems, the Highlands included. I cannot find a
biography of this worthy and able man. I happened to mention William Frend,
and he said, "Ah! my old master, as I always call him. Many and many a
time, and year after year, did he come in every {200} now and then to give
me instruction, while I was sitting on the board, working for my living,
you know."
Place, who really was a sound economist, is joined with Cobbett, because
they were together at one time, and because he was, in 1800, etc., a great
Radical. But for Cobbett he had a great contempt. He told me the following
story. He and others were advising with Cobbett about the defense he was to
make on a trial for seditious libel which was coming on. Said Place, "You
must put in the letters you have received from Ministers, members of the
Commons from the Speaker downwards, etc., about your Register, and their
wish to have subjects noted. You must then ask the jury whether a person so
addressed must be considered as a common sower of sedition, etc. You will
be acquitted; nay, if your intention should get about, very likely they
will manage to stop proceedings." Cobbett was too much disturbed to listen;
he walked about the room ejaculating "D---- the prison!" and the like. He
had not the sense to follow the advice, and was convicted.
Cobbett, to go on with the chain, was a political acrobat, ready for any
kind of posture. A friend of mine gave me several times an account of a
mission to him. A Tory member--those who know the old Tory world may look
for his initials in initials of two consecutive words of "Pay his money
with interest"--who was, of course, a political opponent, thought Cobbett
had been hardly used, and determined to subscribe handsomely towards the
expenses he was incurring as a candidate. My friend was commissioned to
hand over the money--a bag of sovereigns, that notes might not be traced.
He went into Cobbett's committee-room, told the patriot his errand, and put
the money on the table. "And to whom, sir, am I indebted?" said Cobbett.
"The donor," was the answer, "is Mr. Andrew Theophilus Smith," or some such
unlikely pair of baptismals. "Ah!" said Cobbett, "I have known Mr. A. T. S.
a long time! he was always a true friend of his country!" {201}
To return to Place. He is a noted instance of the advantage of our jury
system, which never asks a man's politics, etc. The late King of Hanover,
when Duke of Cumberland, being unpopular, was brought under unjust
suspicions by the suicide of his valet: he must have seduced the wife and
murdered the husband. The charges were as absurd as those brought against
the Englishman in the Frenchman's attempt at satirical verses upon him:
"The Englishman is a very bad man;
He drink the beer and he steal the can:
He kiss the wife and he beat the man;
And the Englishman is a very G---- d----."
The charges were revived in a much later day, and the defense might have
given some trouble. But Place, who had been the foreman at the inquest,
came forward, and settled the question in a few lines. Every one knew that
the old Radical was quite free of all disposition to suppress truth from
wish to curry favor with royalty.
John Speed,[453] the author of the _English History_,[454] (1632) which
Bishop Nicolson[455] calls the best chronicle extant, was a man, like
Place, of no education, but what he gave himself. The bishop says he would
have done better if he had a better training: but what, he adds, could have
been expected from a tailor! This Speed was, as well as Place. But he was
{202} released from manual labor by Sir Fulk Grevil,[456] who enabled him
to study.