The Marquis of Lansdowne, who was a Trinity man and whose son was of Trinity, intimated to the authorities of the College that he was desirous of placing in the antechapel a statue of Milton.  This, regard being had to the customs and the college-feelings of Cambridge, was totally impossible.  The antechapel of every college is sacredly reserved for memorials of the men of that college only; and Milton was of Christ’s College.  The Marquis of Lansdowne, on hearing this objection, left the choice of the person to be commemorated, to certain persons of the college, one of whom (a literary character of the highest eminence and a profound admirer of Milton) has not resided in Cambridge for many years.  Several names were carefully considered, and particularly one (not mentioned by your correspondent) of very great literary celebrity, but in whose writings there is ingrained so much of ribaldry and licentiousness that he was at length given up.  Finally the choice rested on Barrow, not as comparable to Milton, but as a person of reputation in his day and as the best who could be found under all the circumstances.

Cromwell never was mentioned; he was a member of Sidney College:  moreover it would have been very wrong to select the exponent of an extreme political party.  But Cromwell has I believe many admirers in Cambridge, to which list I attach myself.

I had no part in the negociations above mentioned, but I saw the original letters, and I answer for the perfect correctness of what I have stated.  But as I am not a principal, I decline to appear in public.

It is much to be desired, both for the Athenaeum and for the public, that such an erroneous statement should not remain uncorrected.  And I would suggest that a correction by the Editor would be just and graceful, and would tend to support the Athenaeum in that high position which it has usually maintained.

I am, dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
G.B.  AIRY.

Hepworth Dixon, Esq.

1859

“The Report to the Visitors states that ’The Lunar Reductions with amended elements (especially parallax) for correction of Observations from 1831 to 1851 are now completed.  It is, I think, matter of congratulation to the Observatory and to Astronomy, that there are now exhibited the results of uninterrupted Lunar Observations extending through more than a century, made at the same place, reduced under the same superintendence and on the same general principles, and compared throughout with the same theoretical Tables.’—­After reference to the great value of the Greenwich Lunar Observations to Prof.  Hansen in constructing his Tables, and to the liberality of the British Government in their grants to Hansen, the Report continues thus:  ’A strict comparison of Hansen’s Tables with the Greenwich Observations of late years, both meridional and extra-meridional, was commenced.  The same observations had, in the daily routine of