Thomas Beddoes to the Editor of A Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and the Arts, 10 May 1799
May 10, 1799.
SirIt would be easy to write a comment upon Mr. Fourcroy’s exposition of the merits of Mayow, as long as the exposition itself (see Annales de Chimie, No. 85); I wish, however, to submit only two or three remarks to that author’s candour. From unremitting occupations of a more important nature, Mr. F. was, I suppose, prevented from bestowing much time upon Mayow. Marks of haste and of want of information are very apparent. I will not insist upon such an error as translating taedae ferali – torche cruelle, or upon the wrong assertion that I republished Mayow in 1790. In general, the French author has bestowed ample praise upon our countryman; but in the estimate of his understanding he has failed most materially. He has neither entered into his views nor rightly conceived the spirit with which Mayow laboured. Mr. F. says, that the thread which he found soon broke in his hands; that he did not suspect the extent of the career which he opened; and that he was not sufficiently struck with the singularity and importance of his first discoveries (p. 89). It would be extraordinary indeed, if a person who outstripped his age in a degree of which there is no other example in the history of science, had not been endowed with superior comprehension of mind. And Mr. F. is directly contradicted by Mayow’s dedication. Never was a sense of the importance of a man’s writings more fervently expressed, ‘Quae autem de Nitro scripsimus, ea se per universam ferè naturam diffundunt! Resque abstrusas explicantquarum plerasque e numerosa scriptorum turba vix quisquam attiget: ’ and so on. Had Mr. F. known that Mayow died at 27 or 28, he would not perhaps have talked of the thread breaking in his hands, and of his only opening the career. What Mr. F. advances concerning causes of the greater popularity of Boyle, appears to me ill founded. But I will not encroach upon your Journal, by any further observations, unless you or your readers desire it.
I am, Sir, your humble servant,
Thomas Beddoes
Published: The Journal of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and the Arts, 3 (1800), 108