AUTHOR OF THE TREATISE. . XXXI was distinguished by a more than ordinary share of judgment and good sense. In 1655, Barrow, disappointed inobtaining a Greekprofessorship, determined to complete his education by travelling in foreign parts. After visiting France and Italy, he prosecuted his journey as far as Constantinople, not only gratifying his curiosity by the way, but en- larging his stores of knowledge by intercourse with living authors and by consulting libraries. Itwas at Constantinople that he formed acquaintance with the Greek fathers, and particularly with Chrysos- tom, so many quotations from whom enrich his Treatise on the Supre- macy. After an absence of four years, he returned home in time to witness the restoration of Charles; an event which he hailed with unfeigned enthusiasm, and in honour of which he penneda Latin poem, charged with the most extravagant and laboured pane- gyric. After this event, the scanty incidents in the life of this illustrious scholar may be comprised in a few sentences. Having received episcopal ordination, it was confidently anticipated by all his friends that a man at once so loyal and so learned would be sure, on the restoration of the old regime, to receive the highest ecclesiastical preferment. In this, however, he and they were destined to be dis- appointed. He was elected, indeed, to the Greek chair in his own college, and lectured for some time to emptybenches. Hewas there- after promoted to two professorships of mathematics; in which more congenial study he acquired a world-wide reputation, sustained even to the present day, by his name being associated with that of his illustrious pupil, Sir Isaac Newton. In 1670, he was by mandate created Doctor in Divinity. But his only preferment in the church which he had done so much to serve was a small sinecure in Wales, which he owed to his uncle, the Bishop of St Asaph, whose name- sake he was, and afterwards a prebendal stall in the Cathedral of Salisbury, from his friend the bishop of that place, Dr SethWard. At length, in 1672, five years before his death, he obtained the mas- tership of Trinity College, Cambridge. On the occasion of this pro- motion, his majesty was pleased to say that " he had given it to the best scholar in England." Posterity, however, will generally agree that,judging by the monarch's own estimate of the man, and by the value attached by both to the dignity of the episcopate, the gift was far beneath Dr Barrow's deserts, and that he had too good reason for complaining, as he did, in an unpublished poem: " Te magis optavit rediturum, Carole, nemo, Et nemo sensit to rediisse minus."
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