34 Life and Charactei' of Nathaniel Bowditch. 



his evening walk he was again always to be found in the library, 

 pursuing the same attractive studies, but ready and glad, at the 

 entrance of any visitor, to throw aside his book, unbend his 

 mind, and indulge in all the gayeties of his light-hearted conver- 

 sation. 



There was nothing that he seemed to enjoy more than this free 

 interchange of thought on all subjects of common interest. At 

 such times the mathematician, the astronomer, the man of sci- 

 ence, disappeared, and he presented himself as the frank, easy, 

 familiar friend. One could hardly believe that this agreeable, fas- 

 cinating companion, who talked so affably and pleasantly on all 

 the topics of the day, and joined so heartily in the quiet mirth 

 and the loud laugh, could really be the great mathematician who 

 had expounded the mechanism of the heavens, and taken his 

 place with Newton, and Leibnitz, and La Place, among the great 

 proficients in exact science. To hear him talk, you would never 

 have suspected that he knew any thing about science, or cared' 

 any thing about it. In this respect he resembled his great Scot- 

 tish contemporary, who has delighted the whole world by his 

 writings. You might have visited him in that library from one 

 year's end to another, and yet, if you or some other visitor did 

 not introduce the subject, I venture to say, that not one word on 

 mathematics would cross his lips. He had no pedantry of any 

 kind. Never did I m-eet with a scientific or literary man so en- 

 tirely devoid of all cant and pretension. In conversation he had 

 the simplicity and playfulness and unaffected manners of a child. 

 His own remarks " seemed rather to escape from his mind than 

 to be produced by it." He laughed heartily, and rubbed his 

 hands, and jumped up, when an observation was made that great- 

 ly pleased him, because it was natural for him so to do, and he 

 had never been schooled into the conventional proprieties of arti- 

 ficial life, nor been accustomed to conceal or stifle any of the in- 

 nocent impulses of his nature. 



Who that once enjoyed the privilege of visiting him in that li- 

 brary, can ever forget the scene ? Methinks I see hiui now, in 

 my mind's eye, the venerable man, sitting there close by his old- 

 fashioned blazing wood fire, bending over his favorite little desk, 

 looking like one of the old philosophers, with his silvery hair, and 

 noble forehead, and beaming eye, and benign countenance ; whilst 

 all around him are ranged the depositories of the wisdom and 



