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“ mystical fancies,” as he himself calls them, in whichhe delighted to lose himself; the “refreshment” he foundin the driest details of ancient chronology; his excessivesensibility to the annoyances of controversy ; his prefer-ence of tranquillity to every other consideration; his po-sitive determination, on more than one occasion, to giveup all scientific labours ; his constant refusal, duringthe later years of his life, to answer enquiries put to himon mathematical subjects, which he always met by refer-ring the enquirer to other mathematicians, especially toM. de Moivre, who, he observed, “ understands thosesubjects better than I doand lastly, what we mustcall his unreasonable disparagement of his own disco-veries, in the remarkable declaration,.— “I know notwhat the world may think of my labours, but to my-self it seems that I have been but as a child playingon the sea-shore; now finding some prettier pebble ormore beautiful shell than my companions, while theunbounded ocean of truth layundiscovered before me:”—such were the instances in which some of the markedpeculiarities of his character were developed ; and thesecircumstances put together cannot but strongly impressus with the belief, that such peculiarities were, by someof those unknown links and mysterious sympathieswhich connect the phenomena of man’s moral and intel-lectual nature, intimately wound up with the operationsof Newton’s mighty genius, and connected with theexercise of those surprising faculties which enabledhim to comprehend in a single grasp the most extensivetheories, and to bring together in the closest union themost widely separated elements of truth. In the facilitywith which he seems to have surmounted difficulties,almost unconscious of their magnitude, we may, perhaps,perceive some explanation of the little value he was ledto set upon what he had done. Celebrity attended himunsought; and, had he cared for it, his morbid reservemore than counterbalanced the desire for fame, andinduced him to keep his discoveries private.

It is characteristic, perhaps, of a genius of the highestA A 4?