520* Mr. T. T. Wilkinson on Mathematics and Mathematicians : 



He told me that in the latter part of Sir Isaac Newton's hfe,'. 

 when foreigners used to ask him questions about mathematical ( 

 subjects, he used to inform them that he liad no time to applyit 

 himself to such subjects, but if they would apply to Dr. Brook fi 

 Taylor, he would resolve them anything they might desire." 



From several successive entries in this portion of the Journal, 

 it would appear that Mr. Burrow was pretty fully occu])ied with 

 private pupils, amongst whom Mr. Humfrey, " Mr. Chapman, j 

 the schoolmaster at RedrifF,'' Mr. Grove and his two sons, areH 

 most frequently mentioned. His associates at this time com*'' 

 prised most of the ablest members of the Spitalfields Mathe^^i 

 matical Society ; the name of Mr. Dalby, afterwards Professoi<^8 

 Dalby of the Royal JMilitary College, Sandhurst, occurs on several>^ 

 occasions as having been in his company and on terms of greafe-^a 

 intimacy. Mr. Dalby was in fact one of the principal writers in''* 

 the early portion of Burrow's Diary ; contributing occasionally^^ 

 in his real name, and frequently under the fictitious signatar0>^ 

 " Caput Mortuum,'' to both the mathematical and poetical de-'" 

 partments. The assistance rendered by Mr. Burrow to " poor''^ 

 Clarke'' appears worthy of notice, since it confirms Mr. Swale'af^ 

 remark, that " his heart was good although his habits had not ^' 

 been formed by the hand of a master : " — most probably Mr.'I^ 

 Clarke was entirely dependent upon such assistance during the'^? 

 latter part of his stay in London. The failure at Christ's Hospi-^" 

 tal is very laconically noticed, but his temper seems to have beett'*^ 

 somewhat more seriously disturbed by the oversight of the un- '^ 

 accommodating tailor than by the decision of the Hospital ex^*^^ 

 aminers. The terms in which his opinions of the workman' s^^ 

 default are expressed, rendered it necessary to suppress a portion' ^^ 

 of the Journal at this point. Mr. Samuel Rogers was a frequent^'!j 

 contributor to the early numbers of the Diary, and at one time * 

 I was led to conclude that he was identical with the noted poet ' 

 and banker of Lombard Street ; subsequent examination, how- j 

 ever, in the absence of positive proof, has led me to doubt the^i, 

 accuracy of this conjecture. The application to Lord Townsend ' V 

 eventually proved successful, since the Diary for 1777 contains'f 

 an announcement that correspondents must address their com- ^ 

 munications to " Mr. Reuben Burrow, Mathematical Master of 

 the Drawing Room in the Tower;" his salary, however, was not '. 

 on a very liberal scale, being only 100/. a year; nor did the > / 

 Board of Ordnance think proper to grant him any remuneration ,cr 

 for the extra duties they imposed upon him in making surveys r 

 of the Essex and Sussex coasts, during the time he held the ap- ' 

 pointment, for on the "27th August, 1782," he complains to the ,^ 

 Board that " he has been allowed nothing ; when at the same r} 

 time that wretched compiler of other men's productions, the 



