ANCIENT ANALYSIS. POEISMS. 73 



nice and difficult on the subject of his own works ; that he 

 never was satisfied with what he had accomplished ; and he 

 probably went on making constant additions and improve- 

 ments to his work. Often urged to publish, he as constantly 

 refused ; indeed, he would say that he had done nothing, or 

 next to nothing, which was in a state to appear before the 

 world ; and moreover, he very early began to apprehend a 

 decay of his faculties, from observing his recollection of 

 recent things to fail, as is very usual with all men ; for as 

 early as 1751, we find him giving this as a reason for de- 

 clining to undertake a work on Lord Stanhope's recommenda- 

 tion, when he was only in his sixty-fifth year. Thus, though 

 he at first used to say he had nothing ready for publication, 

 he afterwards added, that he was too old to complete his 

 work satisfactorily. In his earlier days he used occasionally 

 to affect a kind of odd mystery on the subject, and when one 

 of his pupils (Dr. Traill) submitted to him some propositions, 

 which he regarded as porisms, Dr. Simson would neither 

 admit nor deny that they were such, but said with some 

 pleasantry, " They are propositions." One of them, however, 

 he has given in his work as a porism, and with a compliment- 

 ary reference to its ingenious and learned author. 



Thus his life wore away without completing this great 

 work, at least without putting it in such a condition as satis- 

 fied himself. It was left among his MSS., and by the judi- 

 cious munificence of a noble geometrician, the liberal friend 

 of scientific men, as well as a successful cultivator of 

 science, Earl Stanhope,* it was, after his death, published, 

 with his restoration of Apollonius' treatise De Sectione deter- 

 minata, a short paper on Logarithms, and another on the 

 Method of Limits geometrically demonstrated, the whole 

 forming a very handsome quarto volume ; of which the 

 Porisms occupy nearly one-half, or 277 pages. 



This work is certainly the master-piece of its distinguished 



* Great-grandfather of the present Earl, whose father also was a 

 successful cultivator of natural science, mechanical especially. 



