The following paragraph appeared in the _Morning Post_, May 4, 1831:
"We understand that although, owing to circumstances with which the public
are not concerned, Mr. Goulburn[623] declined becoming a candidate for
University honors, that his scientific attainments are far from
inconsiderable. He is well known to be the author of an essay in the
Philosophical Transactions on the accurate rectification of a circular arc,
and of an investigation of the equation of a lunar caustic--a problem
likely to become of great use in nautical astronomy."
{289}
This hoax--which would probably have succeeded with any journal--was palmed
upon the _Morning Post_, which supported Mr. Goulburn, by some Cambridge
wags who supported Mr. Lubbock, the other candidate for the University of
Cambridge. Putting on the usual concealment, I may say that I always
suspected Dr-nkw-t-r B-th-n-[624] of having a share in the matter. The
skill of the hoax lies in avoiding the words "quadrature of the circle,"
which all know, and speaking of "the accurate rectification of a circular
arc," which all do not know for its synonyme. The _Morning Post_ next day
gave a reproof to hoaxers in general, without referring to any particular
case. It must be added, that although there are _caustics_ in mathematics,
there is no _lunar_ caustic.
So far as Mr. Goulburn was concerned, the above was poetic justice. He was
the minister who, in old time, told a deputation from the Astronomical
Society that the Government "did not care twopence for all the science in
the country." There may be some still alive who remember this: I heard it
from more than one of those who were present, and are now gone. Matters are
much changed. I was thirty years in office at the Astronomical Society;
and, to my certain knowledge, every Government of that period, Whig and
Tory, showed itself ready to help with influence when wanted, and with
money whenever there was an answer for the House of Commons. The following
correction subsequently appeared. Referring to the hoax about Mr. Goulburn,
Messrs. C. H. and Thompson Cooper[625] have corrected an error, by stating
that the election which gave rise to the hoax was that in which Messrs.
Goulburn {290} and Yates Peel[626] defeated Lord Palmerston[627] and Mr.
Cavendish.[628] They add that Mr. Gunning, the well-known Esquire Bedell of
the University, attributed the hoax to the late Rev. R. Sheepshanks, to
whom, they state, are also attributed certain clever fictitious
biographies--of public men, as I understand it--which were palmed upon the
editor of the _Cambridge Chronicle_, who never suspected their genuineness
to the day of his death. Being in most confidential intercourse with Mr.
Sheepshanks,[629] both at the time and all the rest of his life
(twenty-five years), and never heard him allude to any such things--which
were not in his line, though he had satirical power of quite another {291}
kind--I feel satisfied he had nothing to do with them. I may add that
others, his nearest friends, and also members of his family, never heard
him allude to these hoaxes as their author, and disbelieve his authorship
as much as I do myself. I say this not as imputing any blame to the true
author, such hoaxes being fair election jokes in all time, but merely to
put the saddle off the wrong horse, and to give one more instance of the
insecurity of imputed authorship. Had Mr. Sheepshanks ever told me that he
had perpetrated the hoax, I should have had no hesitation in giving it to
him. I consider all clever election squibs, free from bitterness and
personal imputation, as giving the multitude good channels for the vent of
feelings which but for them would certainly find bad ones.
[But I now suspect that Mr. Babbage[630] had some hand in the hoax. He
gives it in his "Passages, &c." and is evidently writing from memory, for
he gives the wrong year. But he has given the paragraph, though not
accurately, yet with such a recollection of the points as brings suspicion
of the authorship upon him, perhaps in conjunction with D. B.[631] Both
were on Cavendish's committee. Mr. Babbage adds, that "late one evening a
cab drove up in hot haste to the office of the _Morning Post_, delivered
the copy as coming from Mr. Goulburn's committee, and at the same time
ordered fifty extra copies of the _Post_ to be sent next morning to their
committee-room." I think the man--the only one I ever heard of--who knew
all about the cab and the extra copies must have known more.]