The learned Professor of Oxford, Dr. Kidd, naturally anxious to repel a charge which he considered individually unfair, and to vindicate his University from an aspersion which he felt to be generally unjust, published an animated, but at the same time, a cool and candid defence, to which I have much pleasure in referring you. With respect to the Sister University, my own _Alma Mater_, I feel that I should be the most ungrateful of her sons, were I, upon this occasion, to omit expressing similar sentiments with respect to the course of chemistry, and that of its collateral branches, which are annually delivered in the crouded schools at Cambridge. Is Mr. Brande acquainted with the discipline of our University?—Is he aware that the chemical chair has been successively filled by BISHOP WATSON—MILNER—WOLLASTON[113]—and the late lamented Mr. TENNANT?—“_Master Builders in the Science_.” To say that such men have been the lecturers, is surely a sufficient testimony to shew that the science of chemistry heretofore _could not_ “have been neglected, or what perhaps is still worse, imperfectly taught;” and the zeal and ability displayed by the present Professor, ought to have shielded him from any such attack. Is Mr. Brande aware that the eloquent appeal of BISHOP WATSON from the chair at Cambridge,[114] on the general importance and utility of chemistry, gave the first impulse to that public taste for this science which so eminently distinguishes our Augustan age, and which has been the means of founding and supporting the Royal, and other Public Institutions in this Metropolis, as well as in the other towns of the British Empire? I need make no farther remark upon this part of Mr. Brande’s assertion; the sequel, judging from the construction of the sentence, is evidently intended to be understood as a consequence, viz. and _therefore_ “the London Pharmacopœia is a record of the want of chemical knowledge where it is most imperiously required,” _because Oxford and Cambridge Physicians were its Editors_. Is not this the obvious construction? It appears from Mr. Brande’s laconic answer to Dr. Young, published in “_The Journal of Science and the Arts_,” that his objections are those of Mr. Phillips, contained in his experimental examination of the Pharmacopœia; a work which, I confess, appears to me to furnish a testimony of the experimental tact, subtile ingenuity, and caustic style of criticism, which its author so eminently possesses, rather than a proof of any fatal or material inaccuracy in the Pharmacopœia; and I may urge this with greater force and propriety, when it is considered that, at the time of its publication, I was not a Fellow of the College, and therefore had no voice upon the subject of its composition, and consequently must be _personally_ disinterested in its reputation.