TALBOT3286

Trinity College, Cambridge

May 23. 1836

My dear Talbot

I have got your paper in my possession & I have read it with great interest & pleasure. I do not feel myself quite authorized to report upon it, untill I have finished a more careful study of Legendre’s ¹ comment on Abel’s theorem ² than I have ever read before. What a pity it is, that you suppressed your discovery so long. The report will be made this week. I am glad that you have been attending to Jerrards ³ papers of the general solution of equations of high orders. I know his brother & they have been referred to me with greater importunity than I like. I must study them carefully before the Bristol meeting ⁴ which is no slight task. Hamilton ⁵ has I believe found out the fallacy or at least he says that he has done so & he is not likely to be mistaken for next to Jacobi, ⁶ he is the greatest analyst of this age. It is a very difficult thing to form a negative, in speculations of this kind. I hope you will approfondir this subject & if you clearly see the fallacy, that you will state it. Lubbock ⁷ was disposed to think, that in a certain sense he had solved the problem

Believe me
My dear Talbot
Most Truly yours

Geo Peacock

^Wm H. F. Talbot Esq
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Devonport
Laycock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts