2 Biographical Memoir of Sir John Leslie. 



He was the son of humble, but, in their line of life, highly 

 respectable parents, who lived to enjoy the celebrity of their 

 son, and for whom he ever cherished that affection which form- 

 ed a marked feature of his character in regard to all the mem- 

 bers of his family. His father, originally from the neighbour- 

 hood of St Andrews, lived for some time at Anstruther, but 

 ultimately settled at Largo, as a joiner and cabinet-maker. 

 His wife, Anne Carstairs, was a native of that place ; and the 

 subject of this Memoir was the youngest child of their marriage. 

 Though he attained in manhood a robust frame, he was, in 

 early youth, of a very feeble constitution ; so much so, that 

 when sent, at four years of age, to a sort of school, kept by an 

 old woman, who plied her wheel whilst teaching the alphabet, 

 he was indulged with a separate stool near the fire-place, which 

 the dame set apart for the feeblest of her juvenile pupils. As 

 long as he was permitted to monopolize this seat of honour, he 

 seems to have been tolerably pleased with his situation ; but 

 being at length superseded by a younger or more favoured 

 pupil, he eloped from the school, hid himself for a day in some 

 obscure corner, and, when obliged to come forth, obstinately 

 refused to return to the tutelage of the ancient spinster. He 

 was in consequence placed in another school, where he remain- 

 ed six months, and was taught writing and arithmetic ; his fa- 

 ther and his eldest brother, who appear to have possessed some 

 knowledge of the elementary parts of mathematics, giving him, 

 at the same time, his first lessons in that science. He was after- 

 wards entered at a school in the neighbouring town of Leven, 

 where Latin was taught ; but his intense dislike to that lan- 

 guage, and his inability, from weakness, to walk and return 

 daily a distance of three miles, induced his parents to discon- 

 tinue his attendance, after a short trial of six weeks. Such was 

 the brief and meagre curriculum which formed the whole train- 

 ing of the future Mathematician and Philosopher, previous to 

 his being entered a student at the University of St Andrews ! 

 But we must not too hastily despatch this early period of his life, 

 when his genius, working Avith its own inward resources, al- 

 ready began to attract observation. 



The first person of any sort of distinction who noticed liis 

 precocious attainments, was Mr Oliphant, who became Minis- 



