NATURE 



[May 3 , 1883 



the duties of the trust without undue inconvenience. 

 Lastly, that after his death I was asked by his sons to 

 undertake the task, and was at the same time informed 

 by several of the most influential of his friends that this 

 selection met their approval, and that they were willing 

 to trust to my judgment the correspondence over which 

 they had control." 



William Rowan Hamilton was born in Dominick Street, 

 Dublin, on August 3-4, 1805. His father, Archibald 

 Hamilton, was a solicitor. When the boy was little more 

 than a year old, it would seem that he gave su:h indica- 

 tions of unusual talent that his parents decided to commit 

 the education of the child to his uncle, the Rev. James 

 Hamilton of Trim, a man of very remarkable talents, 

 who, with his sister, Jane Sydney Hamilton, reared and 

 educated the child. What that childhood was can be 

 best described in the words of the biographer, who says, 

 on pp. 46-47 : — 



" It will then be noted that, continuing a vigorous child 

 in spirits and playfulness, he was at thr^e years of age a 

 superior reader of English and considerably advanced in 

 arithmetic ; at four a good geographer ; at five able to 

 read and translate Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and loving 

 to recite Dryden, Collins, Milton, and Homer ; at eight 

 he has added Italian and French, and gives vent to his 

 feelings in extemporised Latin ; and before he is ten he 

 is a student of Arabic and Sanscrit. And all this know- 

 ledge seems to have been acquired not indeed without 

 diligence, but with perfect ease, and applied, as occasion 

 arose, with practical judgment and tact ; and we catch 

 sight of him when only nine swimming with his uncle in 

 the waters of the Boyne. In this accomplishment he 

 afterwards became a proficient." 



Again, on p. 51 we have a description of a little 

 manuscript book of 30 pages thus entitled " A Syriac 

 Grammar. In Syriac Letters and Characters ; Compiled 

 from that of Buxtorf ; Translated into the English 

 Language and Syriac Characters by William Hamilton, 

 Esq., of Dublin and Trim. Begun July 4th, 1S17 ; 

 Finished July nth, 18 17." The conclusion of the book is 

 as follows : — "Thus have I gone through what is neces- 

 sary to be known for reading and writing Syriac. . . . 

 Soon may be expected an account of their irregular and 

 indeclinable words, &c, with a syntax." The author of 

 this production was still under twelve years old. 



A couple of years later (November, 18 19) we find 

 Hamilton inditing a letter in Persian to the Persian 

 ambassador, Mirzu Abul Hassan Khan, then on a visit in 

 Dublin. Hamilton has left a translation of this produc- 

 tion, the following extract from which evinces the Oriental 

 aroma which pervades the whole : — 



"As the heart of the worshipper is turned towards the 

 altar of his sacred vision, and as the sunflower to the rays 

 of the sun, so to thy polished radiance turns expanding 

 itself the yet unblossomed rosebud of my mind, desiring 

 warmer climates whose fragrancy and glorious splendour 

 appear to warm and embalm the orbit about thee, the 

 Star of the State, of brilliant lustre." 



Hamilton's letter met with a very favourable reception ; 

 the secretary had observed no mistakes, and inquired 

 whether he had not copied it from something, and the 

 compliments bestowed on the author were all the more 

 pointed, because "Captain Kian," who had also attempted 

 to write a letter in Persian, was informed that his presence 

 would be dispensed with, as his letter was totally unin- 

 telligible. 



A large fraction of the present volume is filled with the 

 poetical effusions, in which on all occasions Hamilton 

 was prone to indulge. The first traces of these "showers 

 of verse," as Wordsworth afterwards playfully called 

 them, is found in Hamilton's letters to his sisters. The 

 biographer has not, however, deemed it desirable to 

 record any poetical effort prior to his sixteenth year, and 

 the first piece we find is (p. 95) " To the Evening Star," 

 of which the first stanza is — 



" How fondly do I hail thee, Star of Eve, 

 In all thy beauty sinking to the we>t, 

 And as if loth our firmament to leave 

 Slow and majestic sinking to thy rest." 



Hamilton lived and thought in an atmosphere of poetry ; 

 he wrote poems on all occasions and all sorts of subjects. 

 It was perhaps not unnatural that as a disappointed lover 

 he should bewail his sorrows in verse, that he should 

 write birthday addresses to his sisters, and sonnets on the 

 Beauty of the Dargle, but we also find him addressing an 

 " Ode to the Moon under Total Eclipse," and to use his 

 own words in writing to Wordsworth, " I have always 

 aimed to infuse into my scientific progress something of 

 the spirit of poetry, and felt that such infusion is essential 

 to intellectual perfection." He has, however, indicated 

 very clearly where his real ambition lay, for at the age of 

 twenty, writing to his friend, Miss Lawrence, he says : — 



"But while you concur with my own sober judgment in 

 refusing to award me the crown of poetic power you would 

 not I am sure desire to extinguish in me that love of 

 ' sacred song ' to which I can with truth lay claim. There 

 is little danger of its ever usurping an undue influence 

 over a mind that has once felt the fascination of science. 

 The pleasure of intense thought is so great, the exercise 

 of mind afforded by mathematical research so delightful, 

 that having once fully known it, it is scarce possible ever to 

 resign it. But it is the very passionateness of my love for 

 science which makes me fear its unlimited indulgence. I 

 would preserve some other taste, some rival principle ; I 

 would cherish the fondness for classical and for elegant 

 literature which was early infused into me by the uncle to 

 whom I owe my education, not in the vain hope of 

 eminence, not in the idle affectation of universal genius, 

 but to expand and liberalise my mind, to multiply and 

 vary its resources, to guard not against the name but 

 against the reality of being a mere mathematician." 



A year later (1822) we find Hamilton entering upon the 

 path of original mathematical discovery. The title of 

 one of the first of these early papers is " Examples of an 

 Osculating Circle determined without any Consideration 

 repugnant to the utmost rigour of Analysis." With two 

 others, one on " The Osculating Parabola to Curves of 

 Double Curvature," and the other on "The Contacts 

 between Algebraic Curves and Surfaces," Hamilton paid 

 his first visit to Dr. Brinkley, then the Astronomer Royal 

 of Ireland. Dr. Brinkley was impressed by their value 

 and by the genius which at the age of seventeen had 

 produced work of so much originality. 



The first year of Hamilton's career in Trinity College, 

 Dublin (1824), justified all the expectations entertained by 

 his friends. In his Freshman year he distanced all his com- 

 petitors alike in classics and in mathematics, while he was 

 also awarded a Chancellor's prize for his poem on the 

 subject of the Ionian Islands. In the same year we read 

 that he commenced another friendship, which remained 

 unbroken to the end of the long life of the brilliantly 

 gifted Maria Edgeworth, and which brought to Hamilton 



