NOTES. 485 



omission in the Principia comes less within the scope of 

 modern than ancient geometry. 



In the following letter, Mr. Carrick Moore has some 

 doubt whether Mrs. M. was daughter of a brother or 

 nephew of Dr. Simson. I have always heard my brother- 

 in-law, the Admiral (Sir J. Moore) state, that his mother 

 was the professor's niece : 



" PUTNEY VILLA, Sept. 28th, 1854. 

 " DEAR LOUD BEOTJGHAM, 



" Some time ago you wrote to inquire from me if I 

 could recollect any particulars of Eobert Simson, the cele- 

 brated geometrician. My mother's name was Jane Simson, 

 niece or great-niece of Eobert Simson, noted for being a 

 very absent man. One day seeing her, he said, 'How 

 do you do, Miss Fraser ? ' misnaming his relative, which 

 proceeded from his knowing that the Simsons were ori- 

 ginally Frasers, being of that clan. It was known, that 

 the room in which Robert Simson lived was a den of 

 confusion, he suffering no one to enter it to put it in 

 order. My mother and another young lady had a violent 

 curiosity to see this apartment, which he kept locked, 

 and never opened but on hearing two Latin words pro- 

 nounced : the ladies learned these words, and knocked 

 at his door in the College 'Who's there?' was cried 

 from the interior ; the Latin words were spoken, and the 

 door was slowly opened, when my mother's companion put 

 in her arm, to prevent the professor shutting them out ; 

 so they got in, he being amused with the stratagem. 

 They saw the room filled with books, papers, mathematical 

 and carpenter's tools, in inextricable confusion ; but the 

 professor got them at last a couple of chairs, from which he 

 swept off the dust, and they sat down and chatted with 

 him. The visit ended gaily. 



" Another anecdote I recollect. After a dinner given by 

 one of the professors, amongst whom Eobert Simson was a 

 guest, the ladies and gentlemen went to walk in the College 

 garden. It happened that a pigeon pursued by a hawk 

 flew into Mr. Simson's bosom, who caught it ; a gentleman 

 seeing this cried, ' Throw the bird to the hawk,' jestingly, 



