496 SIMSON. 



At what time his knowledge of the whole became 

 matured we are not informed ; but we know that his 

 own nature was 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 improvements to his work. 

 Often urged to publish, he as constantly refused ; in- 

 deed 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 appre- 

 hend a decay of his faculties, from observing his recol- 

 lection 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 declining to undertake a work on Lord 

 Stanhope's recommendation, 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 satis- 

 factorily. 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. Sim- 

 son 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 complimentary 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 con- 

 dition as satisfied himself. It was left among his MSS., 

 and by the judicious munificence of a noble geometri- 

 cian, the liberal friend of scientific men, as well as the 



