SIMSON. 131 



to give him a degree they had only to make him 

 Doctor of Laws, instead of taking a step which for 

 ever threw discredit upon their medical honours. Mr. 

 Millar must have heard the truth from his father and 

 the other professors, who had the honour of knowing 

 Dr. Simson personally, and never could have imagined 

 or invented the circumstance of his studying under 

 Boerhaave.* 



Of his early years we know little; but that he was 

 always extremely fond of reading is certain; and he 

 must have had a considerable turn for mechanical 

 pursuits if the tradition in the neighbourhood of Kirton 

 Hill be well founded, which ascribes to him the making, 

 or at least designing and placing a dial of a curious 

 form (which I have seen) on a neatly ornamented pe- 

 destal in the garden of his father's house. At the usual 

 early age of matriculation in Scotland, he was sent to 

 the University of Glasgow, and he had there made con- 

 siderable progress in his studies before the love of 

 mathematical pursuits appealed to possess him. His 

 attention was directed to theology, to logic, to Oriental 

 learning; and in the latter he had made such progress, 

 that a relation who taught the class having fallen ill, 

 Simson easily supplied his place for part of a session, 

 the Scottish academical year. It was while engaged 

 in theological studies that the mathematics first seized 

 hold of his mind. He used in after life to relate how, 

 wearied with the controversies to which his clerical 

 studies led him, he would refresh himself with philo- 

 sophical reading; and not seldom finding himself there 

 also tossed about by conflicting dogmas, he retired for 

 peace and shelter to the certain science of necessary 

 truth; "and then," said he, " I always found myself 

 refreshed with rest." 



* The account which T have seen was in the late Earl of Buchan's pos- 

 session, and was extended by matters collected when he himself studied at 

 Glasgow. It seems by the mathematical appearance of it to have come 

 from James Millar, himself one of the professors. 



