How different was poor Babbage! Who that attends any sort of scientific gatherings has not seen Sir Roderick? but who in the world, excepting the organ-grinders and the police magistrate has ever seen Babbage, or even his portrait? What a contrast between the seclusion and the public existence; between the hedgehog bristles and the velvet softness, of the one and the other! Those who were on intimate terms with Babbage (I have never met or heard of such a person) could probably tell us that all his irritability and roughness were outside, and that, in the absence of organ-grinders, he was a kind and amiable gentleman; but, even admitting this, the contrast between the two philosophers is as great as could well be found between any two men following the most widely divergent studies or professions. Those who would reply that mathematics and geology are such different studies have only to go a little further back on the death-roll, and they will find the name of De Morgan, a pure mathematician, like Babbage. He was a man of exuberant fun and humor, and so far from hating music of either a humble or pretentious character, was a highly accomplished musician, both theoretical and practical, and if we are to believe confidential communications, one of his favorite instruments was the penny whistle, on which he was a most original and peculiar performer. I had not intended to reprint the above, which was written just after the death of Murchison and Babbage, but the comments that have recently followed the death of Darwin induce me to do so. Many have expressed their surprise at the unanimous expressions of Darwin’s friends concerning the geniality of his disposition, his gentleness, cheerfulness; his _genuine_ humility and simplicity of character. A third type of character is here presented, and that which corresponds most correctly with the true ideal of a modern philosopher, also represented by that great master of experimental science, Faraday. In both of these there was the full measure of Murchison’s amiability, but without the courtly polish of the ex-soldier. Philosophic meditation and close application to original research may, and often does, induce a certain degree of shyness due to a consciousness of the social disqualification which arises from that inability to fulfil all the demands for small attentions which constitute conventional politeness; a disability due to habits of consecutive thought and mental abstraction. A sensitive and amiable man would suffer much pain on finding that he had neglected to supply the small wants of the lady sitting next to him at a dinner party, and would withdraw himself from the risk of repeating such unwitting rudeness. This holding back from ordinary society, though really due to a conscientious sense of social duty and tender regard for the feelings of others, is too often referred to a churlish unsociality or arrogant assumption of superiority.