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made him equally beloved. Thus he had grown to he a power — the 

 centre of a great sphere of intellectual activity ; and we could not con- 

 ceal from ourselves the obvious fact, that his removal from the field 

 of his labour is a source of peculiarly auxious concern. 



The death of a great mathematician like Hamilton is with reason 

 lamented, because it certainly retards the development of those 

 branches of mathematics in the cultivation of which he had been most 

 successful ; but it can hardly be thought of as absolutely irreparable to 

 science. The band of whom one of the leaders has fallen is a numerous 

 one. It gathers its recruits from all parts of the civilized world. It 

 extends its conquests with a march certain, though not uniform, into 

 the regions of the unknown. Scientific progress in any particular di- 

 rection suggests research, and facilitates further progress. Thus science 

 advances like a tide, pressing onward with an accumulating force. If 

 Newton and Leibnitz had died before they had made their famous dis- 

 coveries, we can hardly doubt but that other scholars in these king- 

 doms, in France, in Italy, in Germany, or in Kussia, would have created 

 the Differential Calculus, and furnished us with an instrument, the 

 need of which was felt in dealing with most of the great problems 

 which at that period engaged the attention of mathematicians. The 

 successful prosecution of the studies to which Petrie devoted his life 

 depends on circumstances of a more precarious nature ; and we cannot 

 count with the same certainty upon their continuous progress. We 

 cannot expect that many will apply themselves to the history and anti- 

 quities of Ireland ; and of those who do, how few are likely to illustrate 

 them by the critical sagacity, the extensive learning, and the sound 

 judgment of the veteran scholar whose loss we are now lamenting ! 

 Let any man picture to himself the condition to which Irish archaeology 

 and other kindred studies would have been reduced, if it had not been 

 far the labours and the influence of Petrie during the latter half of his 

 life ; he will then understand why Petrie' s death has been felt as a 

 national calamity. 



George Petrie was born in Dublin, on the 1st of January, 1790. 

 He was the son of James Petrie, an eminent portrait and miniature 

 painter, from whom he inherited a taste for both literature and art. 

 His general education was carefully attended to. He was sent to the 

 school of Mr. "Whyte, of Grafton- street, who at that time gave instruc- 

 tion to the sons of many of the most distinguished citizens of Dublin ; 

 and there, sitting perhaps at the same desk as that at which Thomas 

 Moore and Richard Brinsley Sheridan had sat before him, he acquired 

 that sound knowledge of the English and of the Classical languages 

 which he afterwards turned to good account, when he became a man of 

 letters. As a boy, he showed a decided preference for art. At an early 

 age he was allowed to assist his father in painting miniatures ; and 

 when only fifteen had attained such skill in drawing as to gain a silver 

 medal for a group of figures in the School of the Dublin Society. Oc- 

 cupations of this kind being more to his taste than the studies and as- 

 sociations connected with the profession of surgery, for which his father 



