152 MEMOIR OF THE LATE PROF. E. HODGKINSON, F.R.S, 



may think or say to the contrary^ were the best standard 

 works of the age ; and it may be affirmed that the scientific 

 literature of the i8th century is accurately and faithfully 

 reflected from the pages of the weaver of Market Bosworth, 

 Thomas Simpson, and the Hurworth village schoolmaster, 

 William Emerson. 



These humble but highly gifted men were more catholic 

 in their writings than are the authors of the present age. 

 They wrote to instruct the mass of mankind; but the 

 writers in these days labour for a special purpose, which is 

 limited in its operation : they write only to supply the daily 

 routine of the school, without casting a single thought 

 beyond its boundary. 



The late E-ev. Robert Murphy, a Cambridge mathe- 

 matician of distinguished eminence, speaks of Thomas 

 Simpson as an analysist of first-rate genius (see ' Murphy's 

 Equations ^). M. Clairaut, when in England, paid Simpson 

 a visit at Woolwich, in order to compare his own investiga- 

 tions on the motion of the moon's apogee with the inves- 

 tigations of Simpson on the same subject. 



This fact alone shows the high position in which Simpson 

 stood in the estimation of the most eminent mathematicians 

 of Europe. 



In consequence of his ardent love for scientific pursuits, 

 Mr. Hodgkinson became acquainted with the most gifted 

 men then living in Manchester. Dr. Dalton, Holme, 

 Henry, Ewart, Sibson, Johns, Fairbairn, were amongst the 

 scientific friends with whom he could freely converse on 

 subjects which possessed a mutual interest. In his mathe- 

 matical reading he sought and obtained the help of Dr. 

 Dalton, who was then a private teacher of mathematics in 

 Manchester. He became one of Dalton' s pupils, and read 

 with him the works of Lagrange, Laplace, Euler, and Ber- 

 nouilli, whose writings were now engaging the attention 

 of the best and foremost mathematicians of England. 



