20 
any tie of kindred. Both had experienced 
unbroken friendship from early youth. Ham- 
ilton, in his will, had nominated Mr. Graves 
as his literary executor ; and the sons of Hamil- 
ton asked him to undertake the task, seconded 
by the approval of several of the most influ- 
ential friends of the great mathematician. 
And, while Mr. Graves has to confess himself 
to be no mathematician, he combined — what 
was of greater import — the requisite amount 
of personal knowledge with the appropriate 
scientific attainments and freedom from incom- 
patible engagements. In his preface, the au- 
thor very gracefully says, by way of allusion 
to his self-distrust in assuming the control of 
Hamilton’s voluminous papers and correspond- 
ence, ‘‘I gave a reluctant consent, wishing 
that the memory of my friend had been more 
fortunate, but at the same time conscious that 
by me would be devoted to it the warmth of 
honest affection and admiration, and the desire 
to be just and truthful.’’ 
In recording the successive mathematical 
discoveries of Hamilton, Mr. Graves does not 
attempt accurately to appreciate their impor- 
tance, or to give them their exact place in con- 
nection with precedent or subsequent discovery. 
He has taken pains to secure that the mathe- 
matical statements in his work are correct, 
giving them generally in the ipsissima verba 
of Hamilton himself, and, where in doubt, con- 
sulting friends of competent authority. This 
course begets a desirable confidence in the 
accuracy of the entire work, — which is, how- 
ever, taken as a whole, almost purely a literary 
biography. It is not so much to the credit of 
Mr. Graves as may at first seem probable, 
that he leaves the letters of Hamilton almost 
unaided to tell the story of his life. The con- 
tributions from the author’s pen are very 
largely of the nature of disconnected comment, 
usually upon a subjoined letter: in fact, there 
is nothing approaching a continuous analysis 
of the life or work or character of Hamilton, 
such as we may hope to see in a subsequent 
volume, and which Mr. Graves, from his evi- 
dently keen insight, and thorough acquaintance 
with the subject of his biography, is of all per- 
sons most fully qualified to write. Nor could 
the book have been otherwise than improved, 
had he drawn very largely from his own asso- 
ciation and personal recollection of Hamilton 
in the interest of those who never knew him. 
- The name of William Hamilton has con- 
ferred a threefold distinction upon the king- 
doms of Great Britain. An early article on the 
subject of this biography reminds its readers 
that each isle has its Sir William Hamilton. 
SCIENCE. 
of art, the Scotchman was among the first in 
philosophy, and the Irishman was among the 
first in mathematics. And the promise of great- 
ness the young Irishman gave at that early 
day failed in no sense of entire fulfilment in 
the development of mature years. Of the 
three Hamiltons, William Rowan was easily 
the chief. We recall in this connection what 
some of his most distinguished contemporaries 
have said of him. The celebrated Dr. Brink- 
ley, astronomer. royal of Ireland (later Bishop 
of Cloyne, and whose successor in the former 
office the youthful Hamilton was so soon to 
be), said of him at the age of eighteen, ‘‘ This 
young man, I do not say will be, but 7s, the first 
mathematician of his age.’’ ‘The brilliant and 
learned Professor Sedgwick, referring publicly 
to Hamilton in 1833, spoke of him as “‘ a man 
who possessed within himself powers and tal- — 
ents perhaps never before combined within 
one philosophical character.’’ Hamilton was 
born in Dublin, Aug. 4, 1805, anddied in the 
same place, from an attack of gout, Sept. 2, 
1865, being then royal astronomer of Ireland. 
His early life is the story of alarming pre- 
cocity, not of invention, but of acquisition. 
Nothing could have seemed more certain to 
those who knew the boy of half a score than 
that middle life would easily insure him rank as 
the chief of linguists. At five he was able to 
read and translate Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; 
at eight, he knew Italian and French; and be- 
fore the age of ten his father wrote of him, 
‘* His thirst for the oriental languages is una- 
bated. He is now master of most, indeed of 
all except the minor and comparatively pro- 
vincial ones. The Hebrew, Persian, and Ar- 
abic are about to be confirmed by the superior 
and intimate acquaintance with the Sanskrit, 
in which he is already a proficient. The Chal- 
dee and Syriac he is grounded in, and the 
Hindoostanee, Malay, Mahratta, Bengali, and 
others. He is about to commence the Chi- 
nese.’’ One of Hamilton’s earliest productive 
efforts was the preparation of a little manu- 
script book of thirty pages, formally entitled 
‘A Syriac grammar, in Syriac letters and 
characters,’ etc. (p. 51). He was not as yet 
twelve years of age; and before another year 
had passed, his works included (these are the 
titles given by the boy himself) ‘A gram- 
mar of the Sanskrit language,’ ‘An Arabic © 
praxis,’ ‘ An analysis of a passage in Syriac,’ 
and ‘ A compendious treatise of algebra,’ — 
which latter proceeds as far as quadratic equa-— 
tions. Up to this point, Hamilton seems to 
have had no marked disposition toward scien- 
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The Englishman was noted for his patrot ply 
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