^ XXlll 



Admiral FitzRoy displayed the earnestness which had always distinguished 

 him. Indeed the severe attention he bestowed on the details of his func- 

 tion, the originating of storm-signals, the puhhcation of ' Reports ' and the 

 * Weather Book,' brought on a severe mental strain which eventually occa- 

 sioned his death on the 30th of April, 1865. The manner of his death was 

 a shock felt far beyond the circle of his friends, and to them exceedingly 

 painful. But they remember him as a man of kindly nature, courteous 

 and considerate in no common degree, inspiring those who knew him best 

 with affectionate attachment. 



The hfe of Benjamin Gompertz is given at length in the * Assurance 

 Magazine' for April 1866, a journal in which original investigations on a 

 branch of mathematical application make their first appearance, and 

 which, therefore, must remain accessible to the scientific world. He was 

 of a Dutch Jewish family, of which the original name was Cohen, and his 

 father was a diamond merchant, whose means left several sons in affluence. 

 He was born March 5, 1779. He had an early turn for mathematics, and 

 at the age of eighteen became a member of the old Mathematical Society 

 of Spitalfields, of which he was President when it merged in the Astro- 

 nomical Society. The ordinary biographical details of his life are very 

 simple. He married (in 1810) the sister of Sir Moses Montefiore, so well 

 known for his benevolent exertions : he had previously started in life on 

 the Stock Exchange. The loss of his only son (in 1823) occasioned his 

 retirement from this pursuit, and produced a depression which made his 

 friends anxious that he should divert his mind by engaging again in 

 business. They persuaded him to take the Actuaryship of the Alliance 

 Office ; and common rumour stated that the office itself was founded by 

 his friends to procure him employment. On his retirement in 1848 he 

 continued to apply himself to mathematical subjects, even long after he had 

 fallen into a state of bodily debility. He died on the 14th of July, 1866. 



Mr. Gompertz's writings, especially those on imaginary quantities and 

 on mortality, show decided inventive power, and that strong aspiration 

 after rigour which characterizes the old English school. Of this school 

 he may be called the last. We do not except Lord Brougham, an older 

 man and an older mathematician, who is still left to us : his early writings 

 are of the mixed type ; they show that combination of the old English and 

 the Continental which was made in Scotland before it was made in 

 England. Mr. Gompertz was the genuine disciple of the * Ladies' Diary,' 

 the * Mathematical Companion,' and that tribe of periodicals supported by 

 all grades, from the man of business to the artisan, which were read and 

 written in by many mathematicians of power to whom the Philosophical 

 Transactions were unknown. Mr. Gompertz contracted some marked 

 pecuharities. He was the last of the Jluxionists : to the day of his death 

 he used the notation of Newton, and he held that respect for Newton's 

 memory demanded this adherence, while at the same time he maintained 



