Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/441

Rh said I to my landlord, "was your answer?"—"I told Him you were a Milord Anglais," replied my host.—"I am not a Milord Anglais," I observed; "but why did you tell him so?"—"Because," said my landlord, "when the minister paid you a visit, you sat down in his presence."

The explanation of the affair was this. Soon after my arrival at Modena, I called on the Marquis Rangoni, a distinguished mathematician, who had written a profound comment on Laplace's "Théorie des Fonctions Génératrices." I had not brought any letter of introduction, but had merely sent up my card. The Marquis Rangoni received me very cordially, and we were soon in deep discussion respecting some of the most abstract questions of analysis. He returned my visit on the following day, when he resumed the discussion, and I showed him some papers connected with the subject. I was aware of the title of the Marquis Rangoni to respect, as arising from his own profound acquaintance with analysis, but I was now, for the first time, informed that he was a man of great importance in the little Dukedom of Modena, for he was the Prime Minister of the Grand Duke—in fact, the Palmerston of Modena. This at once explained the attention I received from the wealthy banker.

One Saturday morning an American gentleman who had just arrived from Liverpool, where he had landed from the United States on the previous day, called in Dorset Street. He was very anxious to see the Difference Engine, and quite fitted by his previous studies for understanding it well. I took him into the drawing-room in which the machine then resided and gave him a short explanation of its structure. As I expected a large party of my friends in the evening,