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them. But how was it possible for him to have done otherwise? Was he to recant at my bidding the labours of a lifetime? For thirty years past I have been of opinion, that the dedication of his powers to the service of Dr Reid, was a perversion of his genius, that this was the one mistake in his career, and that he would have done far better if he had built entirely on his own foundation. Every one must admit, that in his elaborate discussions on Dr Reid, he has written much which, both as criticism and as history, is of the highest philosophical importance, and that the student of speculation not only may study these disquisitions with advantage, but must master them if he would be a proficient in the science. But, nevertheless, I have taken the liberty of telling him in conversation and in print, that "all his expositorial ingenuity has not succeeded in conferring on that writer, even the lowest degree of scientific intelligibility"—meaning by scientific, the progressive deduction of one truth from another, in an ordered sequence. It is no wonder that he thought me wrong; and that he occasionally retorted. Departed great one! let me now bear the blame, and, as some atonement, let me now pay the penalty of having spoken out, perhaps too plainly, what I hold to be the truth:—To thee be all the praise of moderation! Never was such rough provocation retaliated with such gentle spleen. I now think of those things almost with regret, though not with compunction; for I should feel far more compunction, if I thought that, even to spare him, I had swerved from my allegiance to the truth, or, in the smallest degree, equivocated. Not for one moment, however, did these trivial differences disturb our cordiality or interrupt our friendship. And whatever effect the promulgation of his opinion as to the new philosophy may have had on my late position, when a candidate for his succession, before the Honourable Town Council, God knows that I love him not one whit the less. This has not raised a speck the size of a man's hand upon the clear and boundless horizon of the affection which I bear him. From first to last my whole intercourse with Sir William Hamilton has been marked with more pleasure and less pain than ever attended, perhaps, my intercourse with