Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/186

170 my recent acquisition. He called on me one morning. I placed him at a short distance in front of the portrait, which he admired greatly. I then asked him what he thought it was. He answered, "An engraving!" On which I asked, "Of what kind?" To this he replied, "Line-engraving, to be sure!" I drew him a little nearer. He then mentioned another style of engraving. At last, having placed Wilkie close to the portrait, he said, after a considerable pause, "Can it be lithography?"

A splendid collection of arms from Afghanistan, recently sent to me from India by Sir Edward Ryan, was lying on the tables in one of the rooms we passed through. These had attracted the notice of the Prince, and on returning, the whole party examined them with the greatest interest.

I now conducted my visitors to the fire-proof building in which the Difference Engine was placed. Prince Albert was, I understood, sufficiently acquainted with the higher departments of mathematical science to appreciate the influence of such an instrument on its future progress. But the circumstance that charmed me was—his bearing towards his uncle, Count Mensdorf. It was perfectly natural: it could be felt, admired, and honoured—but not described.

When the sad fact of the nation's loss became known to me, I immediately reverted with some anxiety to a work I had published ten years before on the Exhibition of 1851. I feared lest, in speaking of that event, I might have committed some injustice, whilst I was indignant at that under which I was myself suffering. I willingly reprint it here because it contained no empty words of flattery; but analysed the reasons which commanded our respect.

"The merit of the original conception of the present