4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



elaborately explained in the Preface. During the thirty years of his 

 total blindness, his memory, which was naturally good, was cultivated, 

 as is not unusual in such cases, to great quickness and accuracy. 

 Besides retaining with literal exactness nearly the whole of the New 

 Testament, he is said to have solved all the problems of Euclid, 

 orally, by recalling the images of the diagrams with which he had 

 been familiar in his youth. 



Our late respected colleague, Benjasiin Apthorp Gould, also 

 died in October last. Mr. Gould Avas born in Lancaster, Mass., in 

 1787, and graduated at Harvard College in 1814. In early life he 

 struggled against many disadvantages, having only the opportunities 

 of a common country school, and not having even the command of his 

 own time until he became of age. He then supported himself by 

 teaching for some years, a profession in which he exhibited peculiar 

 aptitude and acquired a marked reputation. Being intent on a col- 

 legiate education, he prepared himself, somewhat late in life, for admis- 

 sion into College, almost without assistance, and afterwards took his 

 place in the foremost rank of a class distinguished by the presence of 

 some of our brightest luminaries in literature. In the latter part of 

 his Senior year, a vacancy occurred in the Public Latin School in 

 Boston, and Mr. Gould, though yet an undergraduate, received, in 

 consequence of the character he had acquired and the strong recom- 

 mendations of President Kirkland and others, the appointment of 

 master in that institution. How well he discharged the duties of that 

 office the testimony of his numerous pupils, and the acknowledged 

 elevation of the character of the -seminary itself, afford ample proof. 

 In 1828, Mr. Gould resigned his post as Principal of the Latin 

 School, and devoted the remainder of his life to commerce. For many 

 years he sustained the reputation of an honorable, intelligent, and 

 successful merchant; and has died in the maturity of life, leaving 

 many who recollect with pleasure his generous nature, his conscien- 

 tious rectitude, and his unwavering fidelity in the path of duty. 



Even within the past month, viz. on the 21st of April, the Acad- 

 emy lost another, and one of its most venerable Fellows, Mr. Wil- 

 liam Wells of Cambridge. Mr. Wells had reached nearly the 

 age of eighty-seven years, — an age which had of late precluded him 

 fi'om any active participation in our labors, — and his retirement 

 had made him comparatively a stranger to most of our members. 

 Yet those who were privileged to know him can truly say, that to 



