distinction, viz., between the operations to be performed, and the quantities or substances operated on. An operation is the method, or the law according to which some object or material is to be changed: and is perfectly distinct from consideration of the material or object itself. Can an engine be made, then, so that it be adjusted to the performance of any order of operations, however complex; so that, whatever its abstract capacities, it may, at any time, be constrained to work according to some fixed law or order to the exclusion of every other? Suppose the zero, or neutral state of the analytical engine, to be a mere expression or possession of capability to execute all the elementary and essential changes on quantity, can it be adjusted to perform these according to a fixed law, or what is the same thing, to develop any function? The answer has been practically given by the Jacquard Loom. In this case, the cards oblige a machine, in which there really is a latent power to work any pattern—to work out one particular pattern; and Mr. Babbage saw that, in the same way, a peculiar and appropriate set of cards of operation might compel the calculating machine to act for the time according to one certain fixed law and no other. The wonderful results of the Jacquard, illustrate the amazing comprehensiveness of this principle; and it may further assist our conceptions, if we liken the numerical or other quantities, which form the subject-matter of the functions, to the material on which the Jacquard mechanism works. These numbers, or subjects, are introduced into the analytical engine, by arrangements quite independent of those which regulate the operations to which they are to be subjected. The two, in fact, work independently, although harmonizing throughout; and the result of the two is the reproduction of the matter—introduced in a raw state—in the shape of cloth with the pattern woven. It is clear, too, that the matter or things acted on need not be numbers. Such an engine could overtake any problem concerning objects, whose natural fundamental relations can be expressed by the relations +, – ×, and ÷ : –. For instance, if the fundamental relations of pitched sounds were susceptible of any similar expression, the engine would be capable of weaving elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent."—The nature and foundation of these undertakings being understood, the reader will follow with lively interest the rather singular history of Mr. Babbage's transactions in connection with them. The earliest public notice on record, in relation to these extraordinary contrivances, is contained in a letter addressed by Government to the council of the Royal Society, bearing date 1st April, 1823, and requesting the consideration of the council for the plan submitted to the government by Mr. Babbage, "for applying machinery to the purposes of calculating and printing mathematical tables." This proposal had reference, of course, only to the difference-engine: the analytical engine not being invented or even imagined at that time. It must be observed that Mr. Babbage had previously explained the principles of his invention in a letter to Sir Humphrey Davy, bearing date July 3, 1822. The council of the Royal Society had no doubt whatever on the subject; and they recommended that government should undertake the pecuniary responsibility of the construction of an engine so invaluable to science, and that required an outlay for which the inventor could never be recompensed. The construction of the difference-engine was undertaken accordingly, and commenced under the guidance of Mr. Babbage, who stipulated from the beginning that no pecuniary reward should, in any case or form, accrue to him personally. Mr. Babbage considered himself fortunate in engaging the aid of Mr. Clements, a talented and very ingenious engineer; but, as often occurs with associations, the result was not auspicious. No man can answer for more than his personal efforts: when bound by association, the course of his acts and their results are beyond his control. Considering the necessity of inventing and constructing tools for the execution of the necessary operations, it is not wonderful that delays occurred, not expected by over-sanguine persons; and that the expense exceeded the first estimate. In 1828 government again required the advice of the Royal Society. It was given after full investigation, and amounted to an earnest recommendation that the engine be completed. This latter recommendation was accompanied by the statement that Mr. Babbage had already expended £6000 of his private fortune in furtherance of the enterprise. The government resolved to persevere, and determined that the workshop should be removed to the immediate neighbourhood of Mr. Babbage's house, in Dorset Square. But to add to the authority of the opinion of the Royal Society, and farther to test the value of the invention, a voluntary and formal commission of inquiry was instituted, consisting of men eminent as to science, station, and public influence. The report of this commission was entirely favourable. Soon after, government appeared to hesitate; and the hesitation was increased by two circumstances. First, Mr. Clements withdrew from the work, and in virtue of a singular legality, took possession, as belonging to himself, of all the valuable tools constructed for the completion of the engine, at the mutual expense of the treasury and Mr. Babbage. Secondly, the idea of the analytical engine—one that absorbed and contained, as a small part, the difference-engine—arose before Mr. Babbage. Of course he could not help it, that a vast idea of this kind should spring up before him, or that he saw means to realize it. Like a faithful man, he communicated the fact of his discovery,—the upshot being, that an alarmed government, with Mr. Goulburne and Sir R. Peel at the head of the Treasury, abandoned the great enterprise. They offered Mr. Babbage in recompense, that the difference-engine, as constructed, should be considered his own property,—an offer which the inventor courteously declined to accept. That engine is now in the museum of King's college, London. The drawings of the machinery not constructed, and of many other contrivances, are also in King's college. The result is a very melancholy one: great hopes in the meantime have perished, and the realization of vast benefits has been postponed. On recently abandoning the chair of the Royal Society, the earl of Rosse nobly performed his duty by entering a protest in the name of the leading savans of England—Mr. Babbage has many other claims on the gratitude of his countrymen. We pass by his physical researches, such as those on rotatory magnetism. His volunteer or ninth Bridgewater Treatise is perhaps the most profound and remarkable of that rather unfortunate series of publications. The electors of Finsbury, however, did not choose to send him to the House of Commons. The vox populi—at least the voice of our present electors—certainly emits at times rather odd utterances.—J. P. N.
BABBARD, Ralph, an English mechanician, who lived in the second half of the sixteenth century. He addressed to Queen Elizabeth a list of his inventions. From the details of one of these, he is believed to have been the first mechanician who formed an idea of the steam-boat.
BABEK or PAPECK, a Persian lord, who lived in the first half of the third century. Babek had a servant named Sasan, in whom he discovered such high qualities that he made him his son-in-law; and from this marriage sprung the celebrated Artaxerxes.
BABEK, surnamed Horremi or Horremdin, a kind of atheistical Persian, who lived about the eighth century, he became the head of a numerous sect, whose religion is represented as consisting in joy or pleasure. He afterwards raised an army, with which he conquered and slew the general of the caliph Al-Mamoun, by whose successor, however, he was made prisoner, and subjected to a cruel death.—G. M.
BABEL, Hugues, a philosopher and rhetorician of the Netherlands, who died in 1556. He taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew at Louvain, and afterwards travelled in England and Holland. He published "Grammatica; Dialectica; Rhetorica;" and left some poems which have not been published.
BABELL, William, organist of the church of All-Hallows, Bread Street, London, and a member of the private band of George I. He was celebrated as a performer on the harpsichord, and is stated to have been the first English musician who simplified music for keyed-stringed instruments, and divested it of the crowded and complicated harmony with which, before his time, it had been embarrassed. He arranged the favourite airs in the operas of Pyrrhus and Demetrius, Hydaspes, Rinaldo, &c., as showy and brilliant lessons for the harpsichord. There are also extant of his compositions—"Twelve Solos for a Violin or Hautboy;" "Twelve Solos for a German Flute or Hautboy;" "Six Concertos for small Flutes and Violins;" and some other works. He died, a young man, about the year 1722, having considerably shortened his days by intemperance.—E. F. R.
BABELOT, a Franciscan friar, and almoner of the duke de Montpensier, lived in the second half of the sixteenth century. He exchanged a monastic life for that of a soldier, and gave himself up to an implacable hatred against the Calvinists, many of whom he put to death. He was, however, in turn, taken
