Biographical Memoir of Sir John Leslie. 23 



Playfair's death, v.hich Avasmost unexpected and distressing. The 



loss to the University is severe I suspect that you were 



nearly deprived of two professors at once ; for on Tuesday the 

 13th ultimo, I met with an alarming accident in Holland. I 

 had passed the evening at a clergyman's with an intelligent 

 merchant, late Provost of Aberdeen. On coming out of the 

 house, at the end of the Boomtiges Street, or the street with 

 rows of trees, the Maas running close, I stepped hastily for- 

 ward to show him the Comet, and the quay being quite dark, 

 I fell eight feet, and then plunged four feet in the water. This 

 was the affair of an instant, and I felt that I was drowning ; 

 but I quickly recovered myself, and was helped out, with no 

 damage but that of a bruize sustained in the fall." The eyes 

 of the Patrons, and others interested in the University, were 

 now turned to Mr Leslie, as the person best qualified to fill the 

 vacant chair. Three years before, when Mr Playfair was 

 abroad, and an arrangement failed for carrying on the Class, 

 Mr Leslie, at the very commencement of the session, unhesi- 

 tatingly undertook the task for his absent colleague ;* but, in- 

 dependently of this circumstance, his eminence in mathematical 

 and physical science was such, that no one else could reason- 

 ably be thought of; and he accordingly was, without difficulty, 

 appointed to the Chair — being thus a second time, but in more 

 melancholy circumstances than on the former occasion, nomi- 

 nated a successor to his early friend. 



The Chair to which he was thus unexpectedly called was 

 unquestionably that for which he was best suited ; and had he 

 happened to be placed in it at the commencement of his jDro- 

 fessoi'ial career, Science in all probability would have derived 

 greater benefits than she actually reaped from his powers. The 

 time spent in his mathematical compositions would have been 

 more profitably employed in that wider and richer province 



* Mr Playfair expressed his gratitude, in very warm terms, for the prompt- 

 ness with which Mr Leslie, on this occasion, relieved him from what would 

 have otherwise proved an unpleasant predicament ; and it is but justice to the 

 latter to mention the act, as showing that the placability of his nature, had 

 entirely obliterated those feelings which the somewhat severe critique of 

 his Gpnmetri/ in the F.dinhuryh Remcv, known to have been written by Mr 

 Playfair, would have left to rankle, and produce the ordinary re^ Its, in a 

 mind more irritable or less mat;nanimous. 



