Prof. Boole^s Account of the late John Walsh of Cork. 349 



may have contributed to foster that respect for learning which 

 still characterizes the Irish peasant. Of his mother, Mr. Walsh 

 always spoke with great affection, attributing to her influence 

 his first love of letters. He also held in kind remembrance one 

 of his early school-fellows, John Harding, to whom in later life 

 he dedicated a little tract on '^^The General Principles of the 

 Theory of Sound. ^' 



When about 28 years of age, John Walsh, in company with 

 Harding, removed to Gork. Necessity, however, compelled the 

 friends to separate. Walsh, who wrote a fine hand, an accom- 

 plishment which he stated that he owed to his mother^s instruc- 

 tion, obtained employment as a teacher of writing in ladies' 

 schools. He also received private pupils, and at a subsequent 

 period was engaged as writing-master in two respectable boys' 

 schools in the city. The teaching of writing and arithmetic 

 appears to have been his chief source of subsistence ; for although 

 he sometimes obtained pupils in the higher mathematics, this 

 was not a frequent occurrence. Mr. "Walsh is said to have been 

 a careful and diligent writing-master, and to have succeeded in 

 making his pupils in arithmetic understand and like the subject. 

 The few testimonies which I have heard of his abilities as a 

 teacher of the higher mathematics would not lead me to think 

 that he was equally successful there. He is stated to have been 

 too intent on enforcing his own peculiar views. Indeed there 

 can be little doubt, from an examination of his papers, that 

 upon this subject he laboured under a peculiar mental halluci- 

 nation. '^-^^^ ■f:Ui>i.>HU^U: 



At what time Mr. Walsh began to write ori^'tn^hleiiik'tibal 

 topics I am not able to determine. By degrees, however, this 

 class of speculations appears to have absorbed his entire interest. 

 He became convinced that the differential calculus was a delu- 

 sion ; that Sir Isaac Newton was a shallow sciolist, if not an 

 impostor; and that the imiversities and academies of Europe 

 were engaged in the interested support of a system of error. 

 Whether this was a sudden conviction, or whether it was the 

 gradual result of the successive disappointments which he was 

 destined to endure in his attempts to convince the world how 

 misplaced its confidence had been, it is not easy to determine ; 

 but the latter is the more probable view. However this may 

 have been, Mr. Walsh was for a series of years engaged in a con- 

 stant endeavour to induce the principal learned societies of 

 Europe to print his communications. His posthumous papers 

 show that he was thus in frequent correspondence with the 

 Prench Academy, the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh, 

 the Royal Irish Academy, and other similar bodies. 



Pailing in every effort of this nature, he published at his own 

 PhiL Mac/, S. 4. Vol. 2, No. 12. Nov, 1851. 2 B 



