SIMSON. 161 



number aloud. He was exceedingly absent ; and the 

 younger part of the university pupils were wont to 

 play upon this peculiarity. It is related that one of 

 the college porters being dressed up for the purpose, 

 came to ask charity, and in answer to the Professor's 

 questions, gave an account of himself closely resem- 

 bling his own history. When he found so great a re- 

 semblance, adds the story, he cried out, "What's your 

 name? " and on the answer being given, " Eobert 

 Simson," he exclaimed with great animation, " Why, 

 it must be myself! " when he awoke from his trance. 

 Notwithstanding his absent habits, he was an exceed- 

 ingly good man of business; he filled the office of 

 Clerk of the Faculty in the University for thirty years, 

 and managed its financial and other concerns with 

 great regularity and success. Like all minds of a 

 higher order, his not only had no contempt for details, 

 but a love of them ; and while clerk he made a tran- 

 script with his own hand of the University records, for 

 which he received a vote of thanks from the Senatus 

 Academicus. 



In 1758, being turned of threescore and ten, he 

 found it necessary to employ an assistant ; when one 

 of his favourite pupils, Dr. Williamson, was appointed 

 his helper and successor. The University passed a 

 resolution stating his merits fully, recording in detail 

 his services to the college and to science at large, and 

 pronouncing a warm but just panegyric upon him. 

 He continued for ten years in the pursuit of his 

 favourite studies, and the enjoyment of the same social 

 intercourse as before. His health, which through his 

 long life had been unbroken, remained entire till within 

 a few weeks of its close, and he died on the 1st of Octo- 

 ber, 1768, having almost completed his eighty-first year. 



He is represented to have been of a calm and 

 pleasing presence, of a portly figure, of easy and not 

 ungraceful manners. A portrait of him in the college 

 library remains, and is said to do him justice. His 



M 



