"By hypothesis [what, again!] let 14° 24' be the chord of an arc of 15° [but I wont, says 14° 24'], and consequently equal to a side of a regular polygon of 24 sides inscribed in the circle. Then 4 times 14° 24' = 57° 36' = the radius of the circle ..."
That is, four times the chord of an arc is the chord of four times the arc: and the sum of four sides of a certain pentagon is equal to the fifth. This is the capital of the column, the crown of the arch, the apex of the pyramid, the watershed of the elevation. Oh! J. S.! J. S.! groans Geometry—Summum J. S. summa injuria![[271]] The other J. S., Joseph Scaliger,[[272]] as already mentioned, had his own way of denying that a straight line is always the shortest distance between two points. A parallel might be instituted, but not in half a column. And J. S. the second has been so tightly handled that he may now be dismissed, with an inscription for his circular shield, obtained by changing Lexica contexat into Circus quadrandus in an epigram of J. S. the first:
"Si quem dura manet sententia judicis, olim
Damnatum ærumnis suppliciisque caput,
Hunc neque fabrili lassent ergastula massa,
Nec rigidas vexent fossa metalla manus.
Circus quadrandus: nam—cætera quid moror?—omnes
Pœnarum facies hic labor unus habet."[[273]]
I had written as far as damnatum when in came the letter of Nauticus as a printed slip, with a request that I would consider the slip as a 'revised copy.' Not a word of alteration in the part I have quoted! And in the evening came a letter desiring that I would alter a gross error; but not the one above: this is revising without revision! If there were cyclometers enough of this stamp, they would, as cultivation progresses—and really, with John Stuart Mill in for Westminster, it seems on the move, even though, as I learn while correcting the proof, Gladstone be out from Oxford; for Oxford is no worse than in 1829, while Westminster is far above what she ever has been: election time excuses even such a parenthesis as this—be engaged to amuse those who can afford it with paralogism at their meals, after the manner of the other jokers who wore the caps and bells. The rich would then order their dinners with panem et Circenses,—up with the victuals and the circle-games—as the poor did in the days of old.