the line he omits is a very good one. I noticed that he translated
"Mais comme nous voulons toujours tout rapporter a un certain but,"
"But we, always wishing to refer," &c., while I had it, "But we, ever
on the look-out to refer," &c.; and "Nous ne faisons pas attention
que nous alterons la philosophie," "We fail to see that thus we
deprive philosophy of her true character," whereas I had "We fail to
see that we thus rob philosophy of her true character." This last
was too much; and though it might turn out that Dr. Krause had quoted
this passage before I had done so, had used the same edition as I
had, had begun two lines from the beginning of a paragraph as I had
done, and that the later resemblances were merely due to Mr. Dallas
having compared Dr. Krause's German translation of Buffon with my
English, and very properly made use of it when he thought fit, it
looked prima facie more as though my quotation had been copied in
English as it stood, and then altered, but not quite altered enough.
This, in the face of the preface, was incredible; but so many points
had such an unpleasant aspect, that I thought it better to send for
Kosmos and see what I could make out.

At this time I knew not one word of German. On the same day,
therefore, that I sent for Kosmos I began acquire that language, and
in the fortnight before Kosmos came had got far enough forward for
all practical purposes--that is to say, with the help of a
translation and a dictionary, I could see whether or no a German
passage was the same as what purported to be its translation.

When Kosmos came I turned to the end of the article to see how the
sentence about mental anachronism and weakness of thought looked in
German. I found nothing of the kind, the original article ended with
some innocent rhyming doggerel about somebody going on and exploring