chair at the instance of his staunch and zealous friend Dr. Wilkins. On the 14th of March, 1664, he made his inaugural speech in the public schools, wherein, after due tribute of praise paid to the founder of the professorship and his executors, he turns to his own case, and apologizes for having deserted the Greek and gone over to the Mathematical schools. All who are acquainted with Barrow's literary labors, must feel considerable surprise at the declaration, that although he never was altogether averse to philological pursuits, yet the whole bent of his mind, and his ardent affections, always lay towards philosophy:* the study of this he terms a serious investigation of things, whilst he considers literature, in comparison with it, merely as a childish hunting after words. He expresses therefore great delight in marching, as we might say, out of the treadmill of grammar (è grammatico pistrino) into the open palæstra of mathematical science; yet though he has thus emancipated himself from his literary fetters by this exchange of office, he professes a most ardent attachment to his university, as a place on which kings might look with envy; as a place where he anxiously desires to spend his days, and from which nothing but extreme necessity shall ever separate him. Indeed about this time, having resigned his charge of the Cottonian library, which he held on trial for a few months, and having also given up his chair at Gresham College, he retired to Cambridge, and there fixed his residence for the remainder of his life.

With regard to Barrow's sentiments on the subject of

"Etenim sicuti nunquam a philologiâ prorsus abhorruerim, ita (ne dissimulem) philosophiam semper impensius adamavi; ut vocularum ludicrum aucupium morosè non despiciam, ita seriam rerum indaginem magis cordicitùs complector;" &c.

classical and mathematical pursuits, though there can be little doubt but that his predilections lay towards the latter, yet we must allow some latitude to his expressions, when we consider not only the apologetic nature of his speech, and the mode of lecturing in those days, which must have been much more irksome than at present from its necessary adaptation to a very juvenile audience; but the probable application of them to verbal criticism, a study pursued with very little zeal or success at that time, though carried to a high degree of perfection by succeeding scholars, with the great Bentley at their head. This species of knowlege, useful not only as the pioneer of literature, but as a great strengthener of the reasoning powers, Barrow did not possess; but he had a great, an almost unlimited acquaintance with the best classical authors, and the most esteemed fathers of the church: nor could he ever have meant to despise or undervalue those admirable sources whence he drew such constant and pure streams of eloquence and wisdom.*

In 1699 he composed his able expositions of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Decalogue, and the Sacraments, probably as exercises for a college preachership; and these, he observes, so took up his thoughts, that he could not easily apply them to any other matter: yet in this same year he published his Lectures on Optics, which he dedicated to the executors of Mr. Lucas, as the first-fruits of

* This appears evident from one of his addresses to the academic youth: "Neque demum linguas negligatis licet, scientiarum claves et eruditionis vestibula; sine quibus ipsi nec doctos intelligere, nec indoctos potestis erudire, et sapientia vobis vel nulla vel infans sit oportet."-Opusc. p. 349.

+ See note in Ward's Lives, &c. p. 161.

their Institution. These lectures, says Dr. Ward,* being sent to the learned Mr. James Gregorie, professor of mathematics at St. Andrew's, and perused by him, he gives the following character of the author in a letter to Mr. John Collins. "Mr. Barrow in his Optics showeth him→ self a most subtil geometer, so that I think him superior to any that ever I looked on. I long exceedingly to see his geometrical lectures, especially because I have some notions on that same subject by mee. I entreat you to send them to mee presently, as they come from the presse, for I esteem the author more than yee can easilie imagine." Nor were Barrow's mathematical abilities undervalued by that rare genius who so soon eclipsed them: for in one of his letters to Mr. John Collins, dated July 13, 1672,+ Newton observes, in allusion probably to these geometrical lectures; "nor is your mathematical intelligence less grateful; for I am very glad that Dr. Barrow's book is abroad." Yet when this learned work, which was published in 1670, had been sometime before the world, and Barrow heard only of two persons who had read it through, viz. Mr. Slusius of Liege, and Mr. Gregory of Scotland, (though these two, says Mr. Hill, might be reckoned instead of thousands,) the little relish such things then met with, helped to loose him altogether from those speculations, and direct his attention more exclusively to theological studies. To these indeed his genius evidently tended, even perhaps when he himself was least aware of it;

Lives of Gresham Professors, p. 161.

+ See Nichols's Illustrations of Literature, vol. iv. p. 46.

"The study of morality and divinity" (says Mr. A. Hill) “ had always been so predominant with him, that when he commented on

to these the whole texture of his mind was subservient; and in this point of view we may admire the disposal of him by providence.

Never probably was religion at a lower ebb in the British dominions than when that profligate prince Charles II. who sat unawed on a throne formed, as it were, out of his father's scaffold, found the people so wearied of puritanical hypocrisy, presbyterian mortifications, and a thousand forms of unintelligible mysticism, that they were ready to plunge into the opposite vices of scepticism or infidelity, and to regard with complacency the dissolute morals of himself and his vile associates.* To denounce this wickedness in the most awful terms; to strike at guilt with fearless aim, whether exalted on high places, or lurking in obscure retreats; to delineate the native horrors and sad effects of vice; to develope the charms of virtue, and to inspire a love of it in the human heart; in short, to assist in building up the fallen buttresses and broken pillars of God's church on earth, was the high and holy task to which Barrow was called. In order, however, that he might collect his stupendous powers for the uninterrupted prosecution of it, he resigned his mathematical chair to that great luminary of science whose glory has never been obscured: next indeed to the credit which Isaac

Archimedes, he could not forbear to prefer and admire much more Suarez for his book de Legibus; and before his Apollonius I find written this divine ejaculation, ‘O Oeds yewμetpeî' Tu autem, Domine, quantus es geometra!" &c.

The picture is drawn very vividly in many of Barrow's sermons, and in his Latin speeches delivered before the university. See in particular his oration at a public commencement: Opuscula, p. 343.

Barrow derives from the exertion of his own vast powers in the augmentation of scientific philosophy, is that which is due to him for his early notice of Isaac Newton ;* to whom he was the constant patron and the friend, as well as the precursor.

Since Barrow may be looked on as the promoter of a great alteration in the course of studies pursued at Cambridge, a concise account of those studies previous to his time, will perhaps not be thought out of place here.

This university, like its sister establishment, was at its first institution little more than a large school of ecclesiastics, where the rudiments of grammar and of such science as was then in vogue, were taught, long before the invention of printing, or the blessings of the Reformation had supplied means of useful knowlege or general instruction. Cambridge is indebted to a few monks, sent by the Abbot of Crowland from his manor of Cottenham, in the beginning of the twelfth century, for an advanced state of

• He was not only the first to remark the merit of our great philosopher, but he submitted to his inspection and revision many of his own excellent mathematical works, wrote of him in the highest terms to his learned correspondents, and resigned to him the Lucasian professorship in Nov. 1669. In a letter to Mr. John Collins, of July 20th, 1669, he acquaints him that a friend of his had brought him some papers, wherein he had set down "methods of calculating the dimensions of magnitudes like that of Mr. Mercator for the hyperbola, but very general; as also of resolving equations;" which he promises to send him. And accordingly he did so, as appears from another letter dated the 31st of that month. And in a third letter of the 20th of August following he says, "I am glad my friend's papers give you so much satisfaction; his name is Mr. Newton, a fellow of our college, and very young, being but the second year Master of Arts; but of an extraordinary genius and proficiency in these things."—See Ward's Lives, p. 161, note.

BAR.

VOL. I.

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