Dear Sir/
I have sent to Kensington to my Mother’s care (No 26 Lower Phillimore Place) who will forward it to you, a copy of the Article Light which has appeared in a piecemeal kind of way in the Encyclopa Metropolitana, <1> of which I beg your acceptance. You will find mention made of some of your own interesting experiments in it. Should it not reach you in a few days, if an opportunity should occur you had better let it be enquired for.
I had long intended to write to you in answer to a letter recd from you some time ago, introducing Mr Key, <2> whose views relative to the London University I should have been most happy to have forwarded had I possessed the slightest influence, on your recommendation, but having no connexion with the institution I could be of no service. Mr K. afterwards called on me relative to the appointment of a Professor at Virginia College and I found him a very agreeable intelligent man and regretted that circumstances afforded me little opportunity of seeing more of him. – The reason of my not writing was simply that I waited in continual expectation of being enabled to accompany my letter with the work in question, but was continually disappointed by the tardiness of the Engravers & have only now got my copies.
In hopes it may interest you I remain dr Sir Yours truly
JFW Herschel
Notes:
1. Herschel wrote his article ‘Light’, in 1827. By 1828 some form of printed copy was available, including the Plates 1–14. The article appeared in the 1830 volume of Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, 2nd Division: Mixed Sciences, v. 2, 1830, pp. 341–586.
2. Thomas Hewitt Key (179–1875), philologist, in Doc. No: 01606, asked WHFT for his support in the competition for the Professorship of Pure Mathematics at the University of London. He was not elected and turned to teaching Latin, for which scholarship he became known. Key’s history is an interesting one. After graduating 19th Wrangler at Cambridge in 1821, he was the founding Professor of Pure Mathematics in the University of Virginia from 1821-1825. Although this position was financially sound, he found it devoid of intellectual challenge, and returning to England was appointed in 1829 Professor of Latin in the newly founded University of London. In 1842, he became headmaster of their affiliated institution, the University College School, a position he held for the rest of his life. Key was also one of the founders of the London Library, a member of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, and President of the Philological Society of London.