The following 'Impromptu' is no doubt by Walsh himself: he was more of a poet than of an astronomer:—
With sophistry blended,
Deep science in Chaos had slept;
Its limits were fettered,
Its voters unlettered,
His students in movements but crept.
Till, despite of great foes,
Great Walsh first arose,
And with logical might did unravel
Those mazes of knowledge,
Ne'er known in a college,
Though sought for with unceasing travail.
With cheers we now hail him,
May success never fail him,
In Polar Geometrical mining;
Till his foes be as tamed
As his works are far-famed
For true philosophic refining.'
Walsh's system is, that all mathematics and physics are wrong: there is hardly one proposition in Euclid which is demonstrated. His example ought to warn all who rely on their own evidence to their own success. He was not, properly speaking, insane; he only spoke his mind more freely than many others of his class. The poor fellow died in the Cork union, during the famine. He had lived a happy life, contemplating his own perfections, like Brahma on the lotos-leaf.
The year 1825 brings me to about the middle of my Athenæum list: that is, so far as mere number of names mentioned is concerned. Freedom of opinion, beyond a doubt, is gaining ground, for good or for evil, according to what the speaker happens to think: admission of authority is no longer made in the old way. If we take soul-cure and body-cure, divinity and medicine, it is manifest that a change has come over us. Time was when it was enough that dose or dogma should be certified by 'Il a été ordonné, Monsieur, il a été ordonné,' as the apothecary said when he wanted to operate upon poor de Porceaugnac. Very much changed: but whether for good or for evil does not now matter; the question is, whether contempt of demonstration such as our paradoxers show has augmented with the rejection of dogmatic authority. It ought to be just the other way: for the
