2. When I was a child, a first cousin of John Bird Sumner[[693]] married a sister of my mother. I cannot remember the time when I first heard his name, but it was made very familiar to me. In time he became Bishop of Chester, and then, Archbishop of Canterbury. My reader may say that Dr. C. R. Sumner,[[694]] Bishop of Winchester, has just as good a claim: but it is not so: those connected with me had more knowledge of Dr. J. B. Sumner;[[695]] and said nothing, or next to nothing, of the other. Rumor says that the Bishop of Winchester has declined an Archbishopric: if so, my rule is a rule of gradations.
3. Thomas Musgrave,[[696]] Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, was Dean of the college when I was an undergraduate: this brought me into connection with him, he giving impositions for not going to chapel, I writing them out according. We had also friendly intercourse in after life; I forgiving, he probably forgetting. Honest Tom
Musgrave, as he used to be called, became Bishop of Hereford, and Archbishop of York.
4. About the time when I went to Cambridge, I heard a great deal about Mr. C. T. Longley,[[697]] of Christchurch, from a cousin of my own of the same college, long since deceased, who spoke of him much, and most affectionately. Dr. Longley passed from Durham to York, and thence to Canterbury. I cannot quite make out the two Archbishoprics; I do not remember any other private channel through which the name came to me: perhaps Dr. Longley, having two strings to his bow, would have been one archbishop if I had never heard of him.
5. When Dr. Wm. Thomson[[698]] was appointed to the see of Gloucester in 1861, he and I had been correspondents on the subject of logic—on which we had both written—for about fourteen years. On his elevation I wrote to him, giving the preceding instances, and informing him that he would certainly be an Archbishop. The case was a strong one, and the law acted rapidly; for Dr. Thomson's elevation to the see of York took place in 1862.
Here are five cases; and there is no opposing instance. I have searched the almanacs since 1828, and can find no instance of a Bishop not finally Archbishop of whom I had known through private sources, direct or indirect. Now what do my paradoxers say? Is this a pre-established harmony, or a chain of coincidences? And how many instances will it require to establish a law?[[699]]
THE HERSCHEL HOAX.
Some account of the great astronomical discoveries lately made by Sir John Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope. Second Edition. London, 12mo. 1836.
This is a curious hoax, evidently written by a person versed in astronomy and clever at introducing probable circumstances and undesigned coincidences.[[700]] It first appeared in a newspaper. It makes Sir J. Herschel discover men, animals, etc. in the moon, of which much detail is given. There seems to have been a French edition, the original, and English editions in America, whence the work came into Britain: but whether the French was published in America or at Paris I do not know. There is no doubt that it was produced in the United States, by M. Nicollet,[[701]] an astronomer, once of Paris, and a fugitive of some kind. About him I have heard two stories. First that he fled to America with funds not his own, and that this book was a mere device to raise the wind. Secondly, that he was a protégé of Laplace, and of the Polignac party, and also an outspoken man. That after the revolution he was so obnoxious to the republican party that he judged it prudent to quit France; which he did in debt, leaving money for his creditors, but not enough, with M. Bouvard. In America he connected himself with an assurance office.