236 Annual Report of tfie Council. 



a long series of years, Cambridge had suffered from the too 

 devoted adherence to Newton's methods, and had fully 

 demonstrated that it was given to as few to use them 

 usefully as to bend Ulysses' bow. Mainly by the exertions 

 of Peacock, the use of other methods had been admitted, 

 and the result was shewn by an extraordinary succession 

 of illustrious mathematicians, who have made up all the 

 leeway which Cambridge had lost. Sylvester and Green, 

 Leslie Ellis, Stokes, Cayley, Adams, and Lord Kelvin, in 

 almost successive years, form a group of which any school 

 may be proud. Cayley began his original work while an 

 undergraduate, and continued it nearly up to his death. 

 His teaching connection with his College was very slight, 

 and before his fellowship lapsed he left Cambridge. He 

 entered at Lincoln's Inn in 1846, and became a pupil of 

 Mr. Christie, the conveyancer. For fourteen years he 

 remained at the bar, taking no work except conveyancing 

 for Mr. Christie, a work for which he gained a reputation 

 by his remarkable skill. This period was the most prolific 

 of his more substantial mathematical papers, covering an 

 enormous range, and including discoveries of the greatest 

 brilliancy. In 1863 the Sadlerian Professorship of Pure 

 Mathematics was founded, by the amalgamation of nine 

 lectureships on Algebra, endowed in 1706 by Lady Mary 

 Sadleir, and Cayley was appointed to the chair, which he 

 held for the rest of his life. Besides the lectures which he 

 gave as Professor, and which were attended chiefly by the 

 mathematical teachers of the University, he served the 

 University well, not only as a draftsman, but also as a 

 general adviser in both business and legal matters. It is 

 beyond the scope of this short note to discuss his principal 

 memoirs or his position among mathematicians of his age. 

 His papers are in course of republication by the Cambridge 

 University Press, and seven large quarto volumes, edited by 

 himself, had been issued at the time of his death. By the 



