Address of M. Hoene Wronski to the British Board of Longitude, upon the actual state of the mathematics, their reform, {250} and upon the new celestial mechanics, giving the definitive solution of the problem of longitude.[570] London, 1820, 8vo. M. Wronski[571] was the author of seven quartos on mathematics, showing very great power of generalization. He was also deep in the transcendental philosophy,[572] and had the Absolute at his fingers' ends. All this knowledge was rendered useless by a persuasion that he had greatly advanced beyond the whole world, with many hints that the Absolute would not be forthcoming, unless prepaid. He was a man of the widest extremes. At one time he desired people to see all possible mathematics in F_x_ = A_{0}[Omega]_{0} + A_{1}[Omega]_{1} + A_{2}[Omega]_{2} + A_{3}[Omega]_{3} + &c. which he did not explain, though there is meaning to it in the quartos. At another time he was proposing the general solution of the[573] fifth degree by help of 625 independent equations of one form and 125 of another. The first separate memoir from any Transactions that I ever possessed was given to me when at Cambridge; the refutation (1819) of this asserted solution, presented to the Academy of Lisbon by Evangelista Torriano. I cannot say I read it. The tract above is an attack on modern mathematicians in general, and on the Board of Longitude, and Dr. Young.[574] {251} DR. MILNER'S PARADOXES. 1820. In this year died Dr. Isaac Milner,[575] President of Queens' College, Cambridge, one of the class of rational paradoxers. Under this name I include all who, in private life, and in matters which concern themselves, take their own course, and suit their own notions, no matter what other people may think of them. These men will put things to uses they were never intended for, to the great distress and disgust of their gregarious friends. I am one of the class, and I could write a little book of cases in which I have incurred absolute reproach for not "doing as other people do." I will name two of my atrocities: I took one of those butter-dishes which have for a top a dome with holes in it, which is turned inward, out of reach of accident, when not in use. Turning the dome inwards, I filled the dish with water, and put a sponge in the dome: the holes let it fill with water, and I had a penwiper, always moist, and worth its price five times over. "Why! what do you mean? It was made to hold butter. You are always at some queer thing or other!" I bought a leaden comb, intended to dye the hair, it being supposed that the application of lead will have this effect. I did not try: but I divided the comb into two, separated the part of closed prongs from the other; and thus I had two ruling machines. The lead marks paper, and by drawing the end of one of the machines along a ruler, I could rule twenty lines at a time, quite fit to write on. I thought I should have killed a friend to whom I explained it: