74 THE LIFE OF JAMES 2). FORBES. [CHAP. 



t 



over completely, and we were obliged to give up the night, 

 which continued impenetrably thick with an east wind. 



'May 28th. Mr. Herschel showed me his apparatus for 

 grinding and polishing specula, which he does himself, and 

 with great success. ... I spoke to Mr. Herschel about a 

 course of reading in analytics, expressing my conviction 

 of the necessity of a good foundation in the highest mathe- 

 matics. He considers Lacroix' Differential and Inte- 

 gral Calculus indispensable, but to be read not through 



but with selection Mr. Herschel drove me down 



in his phaeton to Stoke Church, the scene of Gray's 

 Elegy ; a beautiful and a most sequestered spot it 

 is. The poet is buried under a black slab elevated 

 above the ground by brickwork at the east end of the 

 church. His mother's name is inserted, not his own/ 



On his way northward Forbes stopped at Manches- 

 ter, and this is the most noteworthy memorial of his 

 stay here : 



' The most extraordinary man I % met is John Dalton, 

 whose name is better known in almost any country of 

 Europe than his own, and in any town than in Manchester. 

 He is generally styled by continental writers the Father 

 of Modern Chemistry, and is one of the eight associates 

 of the Institute. Yet this man between sixty and seventy is 

 earning, as I had a peculiar satisfaction in seeing with 

 my own eyes, a penurious existence by teaching boys the 

 elements of mathematics, with which he is so totally 

 occupied, that he can hardly snatch a moment for the pro- 

 secution of discoveries which have already put his name 

 on a level with the courtly and courted Davy. But the 

 remarkable thing is that this simple and firm-minded man 

 preserves all the original simplicity and equanimity of 

 his mind, and calmly leaves his fame, like Bacon, to other 

 nations and future ages/ 



The hearty reception he had met with from the scien- 

 tific brotherhood in the south sent him back to Scotland 

 with spirits braced for new exertions. And well it 

 might : to be thus welcomed by the chief men of the 

 scientific world, while still a mere youth, is not the lot 



