598 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. V. No. 120. 



ligious tests then enforced at Cambridge and 

 to sign the 39 articles not only debarred 

 him from his degree and from competing 

 for the Smith's prizes, but, what was far 

 worse, deprived him of the Fellowship mor- 

 ally his due. He keenly felt the injustice. 



In his celebrated address at the Johns 

 Hopkins University his denunciation of the 

 narrowness, bigotry and intense selfishness 

 exhibited in these compulsory creed tests, 

 made a wonderful burst of oratory. These 

 opinions were fully shared by De Morgan, 

 his colleague at University College. Copies 

 I possess of the five examination papers set 

 by Sylvester at the June examination, 

 session of 1839-40, show him striving as a 

 physicist, but it was all a false start. Even 

 his first paper shows he was always the 

 Sylvester we knew. To the ' Index of 

 Contents' he appends the characteristic 

 note: "Since writing this index I have 

 made many additions more interesting than 

 any of the propositions here cited, which 

 will appear toward the conclusion." Ever 

 he is borne along helpless but ecstatic in 

 the ungovernable flood of his thought. 



A physical experiment never suggests 

 itself to the great mental experimenter. 

 Cayley once asked for his box of drawing 

 instruments. Sylvester answered, " I never 

 had one." Something of this irksomeness 

 of the outside world, the world of matter, 

 may have made him accept, in 1841, the 

 professorship offered him in the University 

 of Virginia. 



On his way to America he visited Rowan 

 Hamilton at Dublin in that observatory 

 ■where the maker of quaternions was as out 

 of place as Sylvester himself would have 

 been. The Virginians so utterly failed to 

 understand Sylvester, his character, his as- 

 pirations, his powers, that the Rev. Dr. 

 Dabney, of Virginia, has seriously assured 

 me that Sylvester was actually deficient in 

 intellect, a sort of semi-idiotic calculating 

 boy. For the sake of the contrast, and to 



show the sort of civilization in which this 

 genius had risked himself, two letters from 

 Sylvester's tutors at Cambridge may here 

 be of interest. 



The great Colenso, Bishop of Natal, pre- 

 viously Fellow and Tutor of St. John's Col- 

 lege, writes: " Having been informed that 

 my friend and former pupil, Mr. J. J. Syl- 

 vester, is a candidate for the office of pro- 

 fessor of mathematics, I beg to state my 

 high opinion of his character both as a 

 mathematician and a gentleman. 



" On the former point, indeed, his degree 

 of Second Wrangler at the University of 

 Cambridge would be, in itself, a sufficient 

 testimonial. But I beg to add that his 

 powers are of a far higher order than even 

 that degree would certify." 



Philip Kelland, himself a Senior Wrang- 

 ler, and then professor of mathematics in 

 the University of Edinburgh, writes : "I 

 have been requested to express my opinion 

 of the qualifications of Mr. J. J. Sylvester, 

 as a mathematician." 



" Mr. Sylvester was one of my private 

 pupils in the University of Cambridge,where 

 he took the degree of Second Wrangler. My 

 opinion of Mr. Sylvester then was that in 

 originality of thought and acuteness of per- 

 ception he had never been surpassed, and I 

 predicted for him an eminent position among 

 the mathematicians of Europe. My antici- 

 pations have been verified. Mr. Sylvester's 

 published papers manifest a depth and 

 originality which entitles them to the high 

 position they occupy in the field of scientific 

 discovery. They prove him to be a man 

 able to grapple with the most diflScult 

 mathematical questions and are satisfactory 

 evidence of the extent of his attainments 

 and the vigor of his mental powers." 



The five papers produced in this year, 

 1841, before Sylvester's departure for Vir- 

 ginia, show that now his key-note is really 

 struck. They adumbrate some of his great- 

 est discoveries. 



