delight; particularly when he contrasts that amiable person's small stature with his gigantic acquirements, in so playful and ingenious a manner, that I should deservedly incur the learned reader's reproaches if I did not give him an opportunity of perusing it in the margin.* * Illustre vero agmen claudat haud postremus merito, quin ausim dicere primus, ut qui nemo hanc cathedram aut tenuit tamdiu, aut tantoperè decoravit, mihi perpetuo obsequio colendus, nec vobis minus omni honore suspiciendus, vir optimus, et oculorum licet judicio renuenti, etiam maximus Duportus. Exiguo quippe cortice obvolutus omnigenæ eruditionis nucleus, angusta capsula inclusus ingens thesaurus literarius; volumine parvo comprehensum quotquot sunt linguarum, artium et scientiarum compendium; tot Erasmorum, Budæorum, Stephanorum accurata epitome; cujus in modico corpore immensus animus habitat,giganteum versatur ingenium, omnes Athenæ hospitantur, tota quanta quanta est Græcia diversatur: quia nostra plerorumque ultima memoria Atlantem agens Græcarum literarum Academiæ decus humeris non magnis adeo quam validis sustentavit, et velut stella mole arcta, virtute diffusissima lucidissimis radiis universum mundum circumfulsit; a quo habet Anglia nostra, ne aliis gentibus literarum gloria cedat, nec suos Galliæ Scaligeros, Salmasios, Patavios, suosve Belgio Heinsios, Grotios, Vossios quod invideat. Quis enim Græcas literas perspexit intimius? quis Latinas extulit purius vel copiosius? quis poëticam facultatem felicius coluit, et coelestis Musæ diviniores raptus heroici carminis majestate propius adæquavit? quis tot unquam orationes habuit concinnas, lepidas, eruditas? aut dum tot annos, imo tot lustra, juventutem Academicam instituit, adeo grammaticam austeritatem critica varietate condivit, rhetorica venustate expolivit, amoena urbanitate temperavit? Quis denique tam fideli opera, tam indefesso labore, tam assidua diligentia, susceptam provinciam administravit, adeo quidem ut successoribus suis tam insigne exemplar sequi difficile fecerit, assequendi vero spem omnem præciderit, et ademerit potestatem? At quid ego loquacis linguæ insulsa temeritate tantas dotes minuo, tantis virtutibus detero, tanta merita obfusco, quæ (nisi loci hujus et temporis ratio silentium damnaret, nisi illius in vos magna merita, in literas As Barrow began by praising the modern professors of Greek literature, he concludes with an eulogy on the ancient authors of it; commenting also on the obligations due from the Latin writers to that ingenious people, "who took captive the fierce conqueror, and introduced arts into rustic Latium." The only part of his speech derogatory to good taste, is that where he seeks unduly to depreciate his own merits, when justly intitled to that honest pride which is due to high deserts. Yet did we not know the depth and extent of Barrow's acquirements, we might be disposed even to credit his assertions on this head, when we find him soon afterwards complaining in the very same schools, that they had been utterly deserted, and his lectures given to empty benches. "There I sat," says he, "in the professorial chair, like Prometheus affixed to his solitary rock, or muttering Greek sentences to the naked walls, like an Attic owl driven out from the society of all the other birds in the air."* He next hints at the author eximia, in meipsum infinita, etiam invito mihi verba extorsissent,) satius erat tacita admiratione fuisse veneratum? Quin vos evolvite scripta, recolite dicta, quæ autores interpretanti, elucidanti, conferenti, quæ prælegenti, et peroranti exciderunt, in memoriam revocate, ut ex profectu vestro magis discatis quam ab elogio meo tantum virum æstimare, cui similem professorem multa vobis non dabunt, parem paucissima invenient, majorem nulla unquam sæcula parient, nulla pepererunt. * A passage in a letter of Archbishop Sancroft, when master of Emanuel Coll., dated Jan. 17th, 1663, will give us some idea of the low state of the litteræ humaniores about this time. "It would grieve you" (says he) "to hear of our public examinations; the Hebrew and Greek learning being out of fashion every where, and especially in the other colleges, where we are forced to seek our candidates for fellowships."-D'Oyly's Life of Sancroft, vol. i. p. 128. "that whom he had selected for explanation by observing, he and his Sophocles had acted with an empty orchestra: that the poet could not procure a tritagonistes, nor a chorus; no, not even one of boys: that there was not a single person to accompany the singers, to applaud the dancers, or to interrupt the speakers; that if by chance a straggling freshman, or a shipwrecked soph was driven by wind or tide on those desert shores, he peeped in perhaps, but when he heard three words of tragic sound, he took instantly to his heels and ran away as from the cave of Polyphemus, even as if he were about to be devoured by a barbarous Greek."* This may serve to give the reader some idea of the state of learning at this time in the junior part of the university, as well as of the sarcastic style of this speech, which is called an oratio sarcasmica, and is on many accounts worthy of attentive perusal. In a passage of great beauty, he states the reasons which prompted him to select the tragedies of Sophocles for the subject of his lectures, and dilates on the superior excellence of that dramatic poet, whilst with great energy and severe sarcasm he investigates the causes that could produce so much apathy in a dissolute and degenerate age. The next question is; whom shall he substitute for the forsaken Sophocles? This gives him an opportunity of briefly characterising the most esteemed Greek authors, and of fixing on the great Stagyrite, who then held the literary world in chains, and who was probably at that time necessary for obtaining a degree. Superest, ut in unum Aristotelem spes nostræ, velut in sacram anchoram, reclinent; ut ad Lycaum, ceu ad arcem Sophiæ munitissimam, portum Our language here fails in expressing the words, "barbaro Graculo." studii certissimum, sanctissimam aram disciplinæ, confugiamus. Accordingly he proposes to explain his exoteric writings, and to begin with his rhetoric. Mr. A. Hill informs us that some friend, that is to himself, borrowed these Aristotelian lectures, and forgot to restore them. Barrow's friends hoped that he would have been advanced to preferment by the government soon after the Restoration. It seems also that he himself considered such a distinction due to the sacrifices made by his family, and to his own loyalty; for the following distich, which he made on his disappointed hopes, is recorded, though not inserted in his Opuscula:* Te magis optavit rediturum, Carole, nemo ; In 1661 he proceeded to the degree of Bachelor in Divinity, with three others of his college; and to this period, in all probability, the excellent Oratio ad Clerum, or Latin sermon, published in his Opuscula, must be referred. In July next year he was elected Gresham Prosessor of geometry, principally at the recommendation of Dr. Wilkins, who was then master of Trinity, and afterwards Bishop of Chester. In a Latin oration, delivered before his lectures, after passing a splendid but just encomium on Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the college, he proceeds to eulogise in a very handsome manner several of its professors, dwelling particularly on the great Sir Christo He bad written an Alcaic ode of 65 stanzas on the king's return, which, besides exhibiting the general inaccuracies of that age in metrical rhythm and nicety of construction, betrays bad taste in the unconscionable length to which it is spun out. pher Wren* among the living, and his own amiable and learned predecessor, Mr. Lawrence Rooke, among the departed. In this same year he wrote an epithalamium in Greek verse on the marriage of King Charles and Queen Catherine; moreover, he refused a living of considerable value, because the condition annexed to it, of teaching the patron's son, had too much the appearance of a simoniacal contract. Whilst he continued at Gresham College, he not only discharged the duty of his own professorship with great diligence and universal approbation, but supplied the place of Dr. Pope in the astronomical chair during that gentleman's absence abroad. Among his lectures, were some on the projection of the sphere, and, as Mr. Sherburne says,† prepared for the press; but these also, having been lent to a friend, could never afterwards be recovered. On the 20th of May, 1663, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society, in the first choice made by the Council after the grant of their charter; and on the 15th of July following, when his excellent uncle was appointed Bishop of Sodor and Man, he preached the consecration sermon in King Henry the Seventh's Chapel. In this same year also the executors of Mr. Henry Lucas, who had been M. P. for the university, proceeded, according to the directions of his will, to found a mathematical professorship at Cambridge; and Barrow obtained the first nomination to this He styles him “prodigium olim pueri, nunc miraculum viri, imo dæmonium hominis." He seems to have always entertained a respect and friendship for this great man, to whom he addresses an epigram preserved in his Opuscula. + Appendix to Manilius, p. 112. Mr. Robert Raworth and Mr. Thos. Buck. |