the late Professor Playfair. 125 



calling forth almost so much as an attempt to commemorate his 

 merit, even in a common newspaper ; and that the death of a 

 man so eminent and so beloved, and, at the same time, so 

 closely connected with many who could v/ell appreciate and 

 suitably describe his excellencies, should be left to the brief and 

 ordinary notice of the daily obituary. No event of the kind 

 certainly ever excited more general sympathy; and no indi- 

 vidual, we are persuaded, will be longer or more affectionately 

 remembered by all the classes of his fellow-citizens ; and yet it 

 is to these very circumstances that we must look for an expla- 

 nation of the apparent neglect by which his memory has bees 

 followed. His humbler admirers have been deterred from ex- 

 pressing their sentiments by a natural feeling of unwillingness 

 to encroach on the privilege of those, whom a nearer approach to 

 his person and talents rendered more worthy to speak of 

 them ; while the learned and eloquent among his friends have 

 trusted to each other for the performance of a task which they 

 could not but feel to be painful in itself, and not a little difficult 

 to perform as it ought to be ; or, perhaps, have reserved for some 

 more solemn occasion that tribute for which the public impatience 

 is already at its height. 



We beg leave to assure our readers, that it is merely from 

 anxiety to do something to gratify this natural impatience, that 

 we presume to enter at all upon a subject to which we are per- 

 fectly aware that we are incapable of doing justice ; for of Mr. 

 Playfair's scientific attainments, of his proficiency in those 

 studies to which he was peculiarly devoted, we are but slen- 

 derly qualified to judge : but, we believe, we hazard nothing in 

 saying that he was one of the most learned mathematicians of 

 his age, and among the first, if not the very first, who intro- 

 duced the beautiful discoveries of the latter continental geome- 

 ters to the knowledge of his countrymen, and gave their just 

 value and true place in the schcn>e of European knowledge to 

 those important improvements by which the whole aspect of the 

 abstract sciences has been renovated since the days of our il- 

 lustrious Newton. If he did not signalize himself by any I)ril- 

 liant or original invention, he must at least, be allowed to have 



