--------------- Mr. Babbage has reprinted, for private circulation, Mr. Weld’s chapter on his _Calculating Machine_, and has appended to it our review[52] of that chapter [see _ante_, p. 1029] with three short foot-notes. The first of these is on a point immaterial to the issue; the second and third contain distinct statements of fact from Mr. Babbage, in reference to our comments upon his proceedings and those of the Government. Our readers will remember that from September 1834 to November 1842, Mr. Babbage could not procure the attention of the Government to the state of the engine, on which 17,000_l._ had been spent; and that, about the beginning of that period, Mr. Babbage had invented the new engine, which he called the _Analytical Engine_. And further, they will remember that all notion of the possibility of blame having been justly incurred by Mr. Babbage rested, in our comment, upon the hypothesis that he had put his wish to abandon the _Difference Engine_ and substitute the _Analytical Engine_ before the Government in such a form as to give them a right to suppose that he was unwilling to proceed with the former. On our remark that it is possible that Sir R. Peel and Mr. Goulburn allowed his well-known wish to influence their decision, Mr. Babbage observes:—“It is scarcely possible that this _supposed_ wish could have influenced Sir Robert Peel, because he had before him a written disavowal of it from Mr. Babbage himself.” Again, of the first half of the period of unanswered application Mr. Weld gives no account, as to the tenor of the applications therein made to the Government: though he shows by documents that during the second half Mr. Babbage, to repeat our own phrase, “stood upon the right ground.” And thereupon we expressed our opinion that the public had a right to explanation from the Government, and to further explanation from Mr. Babbage. This further explanation Mr. Babbage now gives, in the following words; among which we insert some bracketed comments:—