IAH. -^n Account of the late Jobs Walsh of Cork. In a letter 

 from Professor Boole to Professor De Mobgan*. 



My dear Sir, Cork, April 12, 1851. 



A FTER an interval whicli you will, I fear, think to have been 

 •^^ needlessly protracted, I am at length able to transmit to 

 you some of those particulars vi^hich you have desired me to col- 

 lect respecting the life of the late John Walsh of Cork. What I 

 have to relate to you will constitute a remarkable, and in some 

 respects a melancholy story. This I say, not because I think 

 that there is evidence that the subject of my letter was on the 

 whole an unhappy individual ; on the contrary, he appears to 

 have been a man of cheerful habits and hopeful temperament ; 

 but because upon any serious view of life and of human concerns, 

 it must ever be a mournful spectacle to see earnestness and per- 

 severance and many of the nobler elements of character wasted 

 upon pursuits altogether void of any useful result. That Mr. 

 Walsh's labours were of this nature you will have already learnt 

 from the communications which he was in the habit of addressing 

 to you, and of which I have heard you speak ; but with what 

 unwearied ardour these labours were pursued, and of how abiding 

 a passion they were the fruit, you will only learn to estimate 

 from the facts which I have now to communicate to you. What- 

 ever may be thought of Mr. Walsh's abilities, you will feel it 

 impossible not to admire his singular application, and not to 

 regret that it was not directed to some more profitable if less 

 ambitious end. 



I think it proper to premise that, for the information contained 

 in this letter, I am mainly indebted to Mr. K., now a scholar of 

 Queen's College, Cork, who was for some years a pupil of Mr. 

 Walsh, and to whom his instructor's books and manuscripts 

 were bequeathed. Mr. K. has been so good as to submit the 

 latter to my inspection, and has given me full permission to 

 make such use of them and of his own communications as I 

 think proper. I have also had the opportunity of conversing 

 with the physicians who attended Mr. Walsh during his last ill- 

 ness while a patient in one of the infirmaries, and finally in the 

 Union workhouse of this city, and from them I have received 

 much interesting information. 



John Walsh was bom at Shandrum, on the border of the 

 County of Limerick, probably about the year 1786. His parents 

 were small farmers ; and the only education which he appears to 

 have received was from itinerant schoolmasters, a class of teach- 

 ers of humble rank, who resided, while imparting their little 

 stock of knowledge, with the parents of their pupils, and thus 

 * Communicated by Professor De Morgan. 



