MRS. SOMERVILLE. 3 



of Mary Fairfax's mind. We may rejoice that, through 

 an accident, she was permitted to reach the position 

 she actually attained ; but there is scarcely a line of 

 her writings which does not, while showing what she 

 was, suggest thoughts of what she might have been. 



While studying mathematics ' in her own way,' she 

 found a difficulty which for a time threatened to inter- 

 fere with her progress. She was unable to read the 

 P-rincipia, because she could not understand Latin. 

 In this strait, she applied, c after much hesitation/ to 

 Prof. Playfair. She asked if a woman might, without 

 impropriety, learn Latin. After ascertaining the pur- 

 pose which the young lady had in view possibly in 

 doubt lest she might follow in the steps of Anne Dacier 

 Prof. Playfair told her that it would not, in his 

 opinion, do her any harm to learn Latin in order to 

 read the Principia. It is noteworthy, as having pro- 

 bably a bearing on the course which Mrs. Somerville's 

 reading subsequently took, that Playfair was one of 

 the few in this country who at that time appreciated 

 the methods of 'the higher mathematical analysis, and 

 had formed a just opinion of their power ' a power, 

 however,' as Sir John Herschel well remarks, ' which 

 he was content to admire and applaud rather than 

 ready to wield.' His excellent review of the Mecanique 

 Celeste probably gave (as Herschel suggests) a stronger 

 impulse to the public mind in the direction of the 

 higher analysis than he could have communicated by 

 . any researches of his own. 



It was not. however, as a mathematician that Mrs. 



B 2 



