142 Obituary Notices of Fellows deceased. 



had actually gone from among them, but that a successor had been 

 appointed for the immediate discharge of professorial duties. 

 Although reticent on the matter, there is no doubt he experienced a 

 very grievous disappointment at having to withdraw his services 

 after so many years of earnest devotion to the cause of public educa- 

 tion, and that too under conditions of peculiar hardship to which no 

 other class of members of the Civil Service are subjected. A memorial 

 on his behalf, signed by the President and a large number of Fellows 

 of the Royal Society, and Professors in the principal Universities of 

 the United Kingdom, was presented to the Government, but without 

 effect. He had to spend the remainder of his days in retirement on 

 a small pension entirely inadequate in amount, especially considering 

 the services he had rendered. He resided abroad for some time, 

 but, under medical advice, returned to Ireland, and died at Bray, 

 co. Wicklow, on the 8th of March last. It is much to be regretted 

 that his widow is but slenderly provided for out of the savings put 

 by from the small income attached to his professorship. In the 

 estimation of his colleagues his personal character was that of an 

 amiable, courteous, and high-minded gentleman. 



W, N. H. 



CHARLES HERMITE. 18221901. 



Charles Hermite, the distinguished French mathematician, was 

 born at Dieuze, in Lorraine, on December 24, 1822. His education 

 was begun at Nancy, and was continued at Paris, where the marked 

 mathematical powers of the youth greatly impressed the professor* in 

 the College Louis-le-Grand. 



Hermite's first memoir belongs to 1842, the greater part of that 

 year being spent in preparing for entrance into the Ecole Polytech- 

 nique. Some idea of his attainments and his ability may be gathered 

 from the fact that, immediately after entering, and on the advice of 

 Liouville, he wrote (in January, 1843) to Jacobi submitting some 

 theorems which he had obtained relating to hyper elliptic functions ; 

 and in the succeeding year, he similarly submitted some results in 

 elliptic functions. This work was deemed of high value by the older 

 mathematician, who caused the letters to be printed in " Crelle's 

 Journal,"! together with an encouraging reply of his own, concluding 

 with the words : " Ne soyez pas fache, monsieur, si quelques-unes de 

 vos decouvertes se sont rencontrees avec mes anciennes recherches. 



* M. Richard, who had had Gralois for one of his pupils fifteen years earlier, 

 f Vol. 32. See also Jacobi's " G-es. Werke," vol. 2, pp. 87130. 



