Malvern Hills

a comprehensive knowledge of geometry, and general mathematical science.

About this time, the Duke of Argyle, in passing through his garden, noticed Newton's Principia, lying on a seat, when, supposing that some one had removed it from his library, he called to young Stone, who happened to be near, to return it again to its place, when he surprised his Grace, by informing him that the book belonged to himself. The Duke now made some enquiries, when he received from him the following remarkable reply.

"I first taught myself to read, and, after this, seeing the masons at work, at your house, I observed the architect use a rule and compasses, and make calculations. Upon enquiry, I was informed, there was a science called arithmetic. I purchased a

book of arithmetic, and learned it. I was then told, there was another science called geometry; I bought it, and learned that also. Finding there were good books on these two sciences, in Latin, I bought a dictionary, and learned that also. I also heard that there were good books, of the same kind, in French; I also learned French. This, my Lord, is what I have done, and it seems to me that we may learn every thing when we know the twenty-four letters of the alphabet." The Duke was pleased to find these unequivocal marks of talent, and, as might be expected, furnished him with all those facilities which enabled him to pursue his favourite studies. He subsequently became a profound mathematician.

The first work he published, was "A new Mathematical Dictionary, 8vo. 1726," He afterwards published "A Treatise on Fluxions, 8vo. 1730;" the direct method translated from the Marquis de l'Hospital's "Analyse des Infiniments Petites," and, the inverse method, furnished by Stone himself. "The Elements of Euclid," 1731, 2 vols. 8vo. ; besides some smaller works. Stone was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and communicated to it, an account of two species of lines of the third order, not mentioned by Sir Isaac Newton, and which was printed in the 41st volume of the Philosophical Transactions.

JEDEDIAH BUXTON. p. 434.

To the few remarkable premature geniuses, here enumerated, may not be amiss to add one more, although of a very different description, JEDEDIAH BUXTON. From his infancy, he discovered a marked direction of his faculties toward figures and calcu

lations, in which he surpassed all his predecessors in this department, as well as those who have more recently attracted public notice. Jedediah Buxton was the son of a schoolmaster, at Elmeton, a village near Chesterfield, and born 1705. His education, notwithstanding his father's profession, was so neglected, that he was never taught either to read or to write. His attention is said to have been so absorbed by the different denominations, and relative proportions of numbers, that he took scarcely any notice of external objects, except in relation to their numbers. When any interval of time was named to him, he almost instantly gave the amount of it in minutes, and in innumerable other instances, established his reputation by solving similar questions. To so great a degree was he capable of abstraction, that no noise discomposed him. Neither did any incidental question or occurrence divert his thoughts, or produce a confusion, which disqualified him for renewing and pursuing his calculations, and these were all effected by memory, without the assistance of pen or paper. By merely walking over any piece of land, he could determine the contents as accurately as though he had measured it with a chain. His application to figures prevented, it is said, his making the smallest acquisitions in other branches of knowledge, as all his faculties were concentred in numerical calculations.

In 1754, he visited London, and was examined by the Royal Society, before whom he established his credit for solving, by a mental process, all kinds of operose questions. His friends took him to see Garrick perform Hamlet, when the splendour of the scenery, and the incidents and actions of the performers, excited in him no surprise, although his mind was manifestly occupied with some inexplicable trains of thought. Upon quitting the house, the cause became manifest, for he informed his friends the precise number of words which Garrick had articulated.

The same persons now conducted him to the brilliant and gorgeous Opera-House, at the sight of which he was wholly unaffected, but he informed his friends, at the conclusion, what had been the number of steps of the chief dancer.

He was now, for the first time, introduced to an Oratorio, and here his mind became unusually distressed. He had made the attempt to reckon the number of notes, but these being so rapid and involved, he found his power of estimation completely fail; and this natural, and necessary result, evidently filled him with mortification, as a failure in his profession. He was married, and

had a family. He subsisted by labour, remained contented in obscurity, and died at the age of 70.

DR. MURRAY. p. 434.

The late Dr. MURRAY of Edinburgh, furnishes another striking instance of the irresistible impulse which nature gives to some minds, to surmount impediments, that ordinary characters deem to be insuperable.

Dr. Murray was the son of a little Scotch farmer, and was employed, when young, to watch a few sheep, amidst the glens and wild mountains of the highlands. With little or no instruction, he had contrived, almost in his infantine years, to pick up Latin, and instead of watching his "fleecy charge," too frequently seated himself on the first grey stone, and pored on his Ovid, or made some ditty the vehicle of his impassioned feelings; for which, his lazy and negligent herd-boy." father often chided him as a

Mr. Murray's own narrative of the process by which he mastered one language after another, and augmented his mental acquisitions, furnishes one of the clearest, simplest, and most interesting pieces of personal biography, yet possessed by the public. It does not accord with the object of these slight notices, to enter into the minutiæ of so remarkable a life, but it is briefly remarked, that, as the district could not furnish pen and ink, the child Murray taught himself to write by forming his letters on a board, with the burnt end of a stick. This was the commencement of his literary career, and its termination was, his being appointed, at the age of 37, on account of his great erudition, and profound philological attainments, Oriental Professor in the University of Edinburgh!" He was born in 1775, and died in 1814, a little more than a year after he had been elevated to the Professor's chair. On an occasion, when the King of Abyssinia transmitted a letter to our Sovereign, George the Third, the Government could find no individual in the country, competent to translate the letter, till they applied to Dr. M. who readily furnished the translation required.

Dr. Murray wrote three articles in the Edinburgh Review, upon either of which his reputation might have securely rested. "On the Irish Dictionary," 1803.

Ist.
2nd. "Clark, on Maritime Discoveries," 1804. And,
3d.

"Maurice's History of Indostan."

1805.

See Dr. Murray's Posthumous Works "On the History of European Languages, two vols. 8vo. 1826. Edited by Dr. Scott."

DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING THE PLATES.

Portrait of John Henderson Frontispiece to VOL. I.
Base of Redcliff Church, Frontispiece to VOL. II.
De Burgham Arms

Fac-similes of Rowley and Chatterton (opposite p.)

Chatterton's Arms

Muniment Room

View of the Oreston Rocks

(opposite p.)