478 . SIMSON. 



forth in a perfection that has made all other editions 

 of that great classic be forgotten. Over the elements 

 of the science he pored assiduously and alone, with 

 only the aid of suggestions occasionally given by a 

 student some years older than himself; and the study 

 falling in with his genius and his taste, he soon made 

 himself master of the first six books, comprising plain 

 geometry, and the eleventh and twelfth, treating of 

 solids, those at least which are bounded by planes or 

 by circular arches. But he did not neglect the other 

 branches of science taught at the College; and he 

 also gave his attention to the literary parts of educa- 

 tion, so well mastering the Latin and Greek languages 

 as to become a learned and accurate scholar. It was 

 in the mathematics, however, that he chiefly excelled ; 

 and his accomplishments in that science becoming 

 known to the professorial body (the Senatus Academi- 

 cus), in whom is vested the patronage of the mathe- 

 matical chair, and an early vacancy being foreseen, 

 they offered him the succession in that event. Being 

 then in his twenty-second year, he modestly declined 

 to undertake so important a charge, but requested a 

 year's delay, during which he might repair to London, 

 and become more familiar with the science and its cul- 

 tivators. We may hence perceive that there could then 

 have been no one at all versed in the mathematics at 

 Glasgow ; and the allowing so important a branch of 

 science to remain for so many years untaught because 

 the teacher who received the ample emoluments of the 

 chair either could not or would not perform its duties, 

 affords a sufficient commentary upon the great abuse 

 likely to flow from vesting the patronage of a profes- 



