136 SIMSON. 



George III. when Prince of Wales, afterwards a Com- 

 missioner of Excise in London, perhaps the most ac- 

 complished of all amateur mathematicians who never 

 gave their works to the world ; Traill, author of the 

 excellent elementary treatise of algebra, of a very 

 learned and exceedingly ill-written, indeed, hardly 

 readable, life of his friend and teacher, but a man of 

 great capacity for science, entirely extinguished, to- 

 gether with his taste for its pursuits (as Professor 

 Playfair used to lament), by the sinecure emoluments 

 of the Irish Church ; but above all, Matthew Stewart, 

 Simson's favourite pupil, and whose suggestions, and 

 indeed contributions, he records in his works with 

 appropriate eulogy, as he does on one occasion an in- 

 genious theorem of Traill these were among his 

 scholars, and were, with Robison, the most distin- 

 guished of their number. His method of lecturing 

 is, by both of the pupils who have written his history, 

 Professor Robison and Dr. Traill, described as singu- 

 larly attractive. His explanations were perfectly clear, 

 and were delivered with great spirit, as well as with 

 the pure taste which presided over all his mathemati- 

 cal processes. His elocution was distinct and natural, 

 his whole manner at once easy and impressive. He 

 did not confine his tuition to the chair, but encouraged 

 his pupils to propound their difficulties in private, and 

 was always accessible to their demands of assistance 

 and advice. Hence the affectionate zeal with which 

 they followed his teaching and ever cherished his 

 memory. 



Successful, however, as he proved in the chair, his 

 genius was bent to the diligent investigation of truth, 

 in the science of which he was so great a master. 

 The ancient geometry, that of the Greeks of which I 

 have spoken, early fixed his attention and occupied his 

 mind by its extraordinary elegance, by the lucid clear- 

 ness with which its investigations are conducted, by 

 the exercise which it affords to the reasoning faculties, 



