48 Camden Street
Camden Town
My dear Sir,
Few things would give me more pleasure than the present you are so kind as to offer me. It reminds me of old times at Cambridge when I recollect that of all the branches of mixed mathematics optics was your favourite pursuit, so that I was less surprised than most men at your brilliant discoveries in that department. In former days you would certainly have been brought to the stake for the impiety of placing the sun under duress.
By the way I trust that the onesided abuse of the Quarterly Review,<1> I know the article only by report, will not deter you from prosecuting your philological researches. Although as I formerly stated to you there is much in the book from which I cannot but depart, somethings too in which you had been anticipated, yet a candid and informed critic could not but admit that there are many things at once new and true.
Believe me My dear Sir Yours very truly
T. Hewitt Key
Notes:
1. John Wilson Croker's virulent review of WHFT, English Etymologies (London: J. Murray, 1847), in Quarterly Review, v.81, September 1847, pp. 500–525.