LITMIR.BIZ

      [1D, 56: According to the plan I have laid down I pass over all family and domestic occurrences. I shall merely state, that after three years of married life, I returned to my father’s house a widow with two sons, one at the breast. I was much out of health, my complexion very pure and pale and I wore a widow’s cap; an old gentleman whom I had long known said my face was like the back of a silver spoon.]

I was much out of health after my husband’s death, and chiefly occupied with my children, especially with the one I was nursing; but as I did not go into society, I rose early, and, having plenty of time, I resumed my mathematical studies. By this time I had studied plane and spherical trigonometry, conic sections, and Ferguson’s Astronomy.31 I think it was immediately after my return to Scotland that I attempted to read Newton’s° Principia. I found it extremely difficult, and certainly did not understand it till I returned to it some time after, when I studied that wonderful work with great assiduity, and wrote numerous notes and observations on it. I obtained a loan of what I believe was called the Jesuit’s edition, which helped me. At this period mathematical science was at a low ebb in Britain; reverence for Newton had prevented men from adopting the ‘Calculus,’ which had enabled foreign mathematicians to carry astronomical and mechanical science to the highest perfection. Professors Ivory° and De Morgan8 had adopted the ‘Calculus’; but several years elapsed before Mr Herschel° and Mr Babbage° were joint-editors with Professor Peacock° in publishing an abridged translation of Lacroix’s° Treatise on the Differential and Integral Calculus. I became acquainted with Mr Wallace°, who was, if I am not mistaken, mathematical teacher of the Military College at Marlow, and editor of a mathematical journal published there. I had solved some of the problems contained in it and sent them to him, which led to a correspondence, as Mr Wallace sent me his own solutions in return. Mine were sometimes right and sometimes wrong, and it occasionally happened that we solved the same problem by different methods. At last I succeeded in solving a prize problem! It was a diophantine problem, and I was awarded a silver medal cast on purpose with my name, which pleased me exceedingly.

Mr Wallace was elected Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh, and was very kind to me. When I told him that I earnestly desired to go through a regular course of mathematical and astronomical science, even including the highest branches, he gave me a list of the requisite books, which were in French, and consisted of Francœur’s pure Mathematics, and his Elements of Mechanics, Lacroix’s Algebra, and his large work on the Differential and Integral Calculus, together with his work on Finite Differences and Series, Biot’s° Analytical Geometry and Astronomy, Poisson’s° Treatise on Mechanics, Lagrange’s° Theory of Analytical Functions, Euler’s Algebra, Euler’s Iso-perimetrical Problems (in Latin), Clairault’s Figure of the Earth, Monge’s Application of Analysis to Geometry, Callet’s Logarithms, Laplace’s° Mécanique Céleste, and his Analytical Theory of Probabilities, &c., &c., &c.32

      I was thirty-three years of age when I bought this excellent little library. I could hardly believe that I possessed such a treasure when I looked back on the day that I first saw the mysterious word ‘Algebra,’ and the long course of years in which I had persevered almost without hope. It taught me never to despair. I had now the means, and pursued my studies with increased assiduity; concealment was no longer possible, nor was it attempted. I was considered eccentric and foolish, and my conduct was highly disapproved of by many, especially by some members of my own family, as will be seen hereafter. They expected me to entertain and keep a gay house for them, and in that they were disappointed. As I was quite independent, I did not care for their criticism. A great part of the day I was occupied with my children; in the evening I worked, played piquet with my father, or played on the piano, sometimes with violin accompaniment.

      [1D, 59–61: In Spring we went to Burntisland which I found sadly changed. Enormous shoals of herrings had come up the Firth, the very sea was rippled by them. They were pursued by flocks of marine birds and whales were seen spouting in various directions, the scene was animated and interesting but the primitive simplicity of the little town was gone. Multitudes of strangers had come to profit by the fishery and speculators built ugly brick houses on the Links for salting and smoking the fish. The fields in the vicinity were manured with the offal and the fish themselves; the air was tainted, the place became uninhabitable and our house and gardens were sold. The following summer we hired a small solitary house on an undulating pasture land between Burntisland and Kinghorn. On entering it I observed that the wall was rent from top to bottom, and was not at all pleased to hear that it was the effect of lightning, being aware that a place once struck was often liable to be struck again. However, I was in greater danger a few days after from a very different cause. My father generally went out with his gun or fishing rod to a lake at a little distance, and as my mother seldom went further than the garden, I resumed my wandering habit and often went in search of plants or merely for a walk on the undulating pasture land. I was not afraid of cattle till one day while heedlessly passing a herd of them I heard a loud bellowing and on looking round I saw a bull pawing the ground and coming towards me. I turned back and went to the top of an undulation and then ran down the other side hoping that when out of sight the bull would return to the herd, but I was no sooner at the bottom than I saw him on the top in full chase. I ran up the next undulation as the animal ran down the preceding, and he continued to pursue me for more than a quarter of a mile till I arrived half dead with fear and fatigue at our own door.]

This was the most brilliant period of The Edinburgh Review;33 it was planned and conducted with consummate talent by a small society of men of the most liberal principles. Their powerful articles gave a severe and lasting blow to the oppressive and illiberal spirit which had hitherto prevailed. I became acquainted with some of these illustrious men, and with many of their immediate successors. I then met Henry Brougham°, who had so remarkable an influence on my future life. His sister had been my early companion, and while visiting her I saw her mother – a fine, intelligent old lady, a niece of Robertson the historian. I had seen the Rev. Sydney Smith°, that celebrated wit and able contributor to the Review, at Burntisland, where he and his wife came for sea-bathing. Long afterwards we lived on the most friendly terms till their deaths. Of that older group no one was more celebrated than Professor Playfair°. He knew that I was reading the Mécanique Céleste, and asked me how I got on? I told him that I was stopped short by a difficulty now and then, but I persevered till I got over it. He said, ‘You would do better to read on for a few pages and return to it again, it will then no longer seem so difficult.’ I invariably followed his advice and with much success.

      Professor Playfair was a man of the most varied accomplishments and of the highest scientific distinction. He was an elderly man when I first became acquainted with him, by no means good-looking, but with a benevolent expression, somewhat concealed by the large spectacles he always wore. His manner was gravely cheerful; he was perfectly amiable, and was both respected and loved, but he could be a severe though just critic. He liked female society, and, philosopher as he was, marked attention from the sex obviously flattered him. [2D, 57 in margin: Mrs Apreece, afterwards Lady Davy°, did her best to captivate him and while out walking, she made him tie her shoe string which amused the Edinburgh gossips.]

      I had now read a good deal on the higher branches of mathematics and physical astronomy, but as I never had been taught, I was afraid that I might imagine that I understood the subjects when I really did not; so by Professor Wallace’s advice I engaged his

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