SIMSON. 479 



sorship in the colleagues of the teacher. I have 

 known a professor's son appointed to the same chair, 

 with few or no mathematical acquirements, because his 

 father was much and justly respected among the mem- 

 bers of the academical body. The same thing could 

 not happen in Edinburgh, where the Crown or the 

 magistrates have the patronage of all the professorships 

 excepting one, and that is in the representative of the 

 founder.* 



Simson repaired accordingly to London, where he be- 

 came intimately acquainted, among others, with Jones 

 the optician, with Henry Ditton of Christ's Hospital, 

 under whose tuition he placed himself, with Carswell, 

 above all, with Edmund Halley, then a captain in the 

 Navy, afterwards so celebrated as Dr. Halley ; of 

 whom he used to assert that " he had never known 

 any other man of so acute and penetrating an under- 

 standing, and of so pure a taste." From him he re- 

 ceived much personal kindness, and what he had 

 reason to value still more, the advice to prosecute his 

 study of the Ancient Geometry, and attempt restoring 

 its lost books. Halley made him a present of his 

 copy of Pappus, with notes in his own hand. But 

 though these accidental circumstances tended to direct 

 his attention towards the scrupulous rigour as well as 

 surpassing elegance of the Greek methods, it is a great 

 mistake to suppose that he objected to the strictness of 

 the modern analysis as inadequate. That he deemed 

 its beauty inferior, and that he was right in so deem- 

 ing, is certain ; but that he questioned the solidity of 



* Agriculture, in the Pulteney Family. 



