The writer of these penetrative remarks lived until 1840, so that he had the gratification of witnessing a triumph akin to his long-cherished hope.
LORD BROUGHAM'S BLUNDERS.
Dr. Young's theory of light was treated with the most sovereign contempt by Lord Brougham, in the earlier numbers of the Edinburgh Review; and Dr. Young died without reaping the honour of his discovery. The theory is now recognised as true; and M. Arago has formally vindicated Dr. Young from the noble critic's animadversions, in a discourse delivered at the French Institute.
In 1809, when the first application was made to Parliament on gas-lighting, the movers in the project were much opposed; a committee of the House of Commons was granted, but the application terminated unsuccessfully; and the testimony of Mr. Accum to the practicability of gas-lighting exposed him to the severe animadversions and ridicule of Mr. Brougham.
WHO FIRST DOUBLED THE CAPE OF GOOD
HOPE?
"Why, Vasco de Gama, to be sure"—perhaps, the reader will reply. In Portugal, however, a much more ancient navigator has been mentioned. Vieyra, an old preacher of great renown at Lisbon, said in one of his sermons:—"One man only passed the Cape of Good Hope before the Portuguese. And who was he? and how? It was Jonah, in the whale's belly. The whale (or rather great fish) went out of the Mediterranean because he had no other course; he kept the coast of Africa on the left, scoured along Ethiopia, passed by Arabia, took post in the Euphrates, on the shores of Nineveh, and, making his tongue serve as a plank, landed the prophet there."