in her "personal recollections" somerville expressed the opinion that at the time mathematical science was at a low ebb in britain, because reverence for newton had prevented local scientists from adopting the calculus, while outside of britain astronomical and mechanical science had reached a high degree of perfection. in her opinion this deadlock was only broken when in 1816 charles babbage, john herschel and george peacock published a translation from french of the lectures of lacroix, which was then the state-of-the-art calculus textbook.