Biographical Memoir of Sir John Leslie. \5 



Mr Leslie commenced and prosecuted his official duties with 

 great ardour. He entertained lofty ideas of the dignity and 

 utility of the professorial character, and was thus disposed to 

 make aU the exertions necessary to success. Though the bent 

 of his genius lay more to Physics than to Pure Mathematics 

 he had cultivated the study of Geometry with kindred relish •' 

 and with an admiration, in particular, of the analytical investi- 

 gations of the ancient geometers, which led to his happiest 

 essays in that science. As a teacher, he not only laboured to 

 promote the study, but to procure for it a larger share of at- 

 tention than our academical system usuaUy assigns to it. His 

 instructions were better suited, perhaps, to youths of superior 

 abihty than to ordinary students ; but reputation, and intellec 

 tual power, produced their usual results, and secured for him 

 an attendance as numerous as could be expected by any teacher 

 during the whole of the fifteen years that he occupied the Ma- 

 thematical Chair. Soon after his election, he resolved to com- 

 pose and to pubUsh, at successive intervals, a complete " Course 

 of Mathematics," digested and arranged according to his own 

 ideas of what was wanted towards promoting a purer taste in 

 the cultivation of the science. Of this Course, the first volume 

 cova^vismg Elements of Geometry, Geometrical Analysis, and 

 Plane Trigonometry, was published in 1809 .; and it has gone 

 through several extensive editions. The first part of it has 

 been regarded as the least perfect and useful; but his own fa 

 vounte portion, on Geometrical Analysis, has been extolled even 

 by the most unsparing critics of the former, as " a great acquisi 

 tion to Elementary Geometry ; and as calculated to keep aKve 

 the knowledge of a most beautiful and interesting branch of the 

 mathematics, which has been too much overlooked durino- the 

 improvement of the more general and powerful methods of al- 

 gebraic investigation."t Abroad, it seems to have been viewed 

 i n a hght equally favoura ble ; as it was speedily translated into 



the least chance of interesting posterity. The two pieces aUuded to were 

 ^■''--'^r^t^cuyf the ter^s of the charge against Mr L^^^^ 



M^n.ters of Ed^nlurgh, and An examination of some remarks in Dr Ingli/s Be- 

 ply to Professor Playfair. The Reply by Dr Inglis was the ablest production 



t JidtTUiurgh Review, voL xx. p. 98. 



