Note 75 — MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF DAVID RITTENHOUSE; ANTERIOR TO HIS SETTLEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA.

ItIt is observable, that, in like manner, an accidental circumstance seems to have given the first impulse to the philosophical researches of that eminent mathematician, Colin Maclaurin, the friend and disciple of Newton. His biographer, Mr. Murdoch, relates, that “his genius for mathematical learning discovered itself so early as at twelve years of age; when, having accidentally met with a copy of Euclid in a friend’s chamber, in a few days he became master of the first six books, without any assistance: and thence, following his natural bent, made such a surprising progress, that very soon after we find him engaged in the most curious and difficult problems.”

It is not ascertained at what age Rittenhouse obtained access to his uncle Williams’s little collection of books and papers; though it was, probably, before his twelfth year. But it is to be observed, that at the early age of twelve, Maclaurin had been a year at the University of Glasgow, where he was placed under the care of one of the most eminent and learned professors of the age; while Rittenhouse, for some years after that period of life, had his time occupied in agricultural pursuits, and was almost entirely uneducated.

One particular in which similar merit attaches itself to these two distinguished philosophers, is, that all their more serious studies were directed towards objects of general utility.

Having introduced the name of Maclaurin more than once into these Memoirs, the author of them cannot refrain from presenting to his readers the following epitaph upon that great mathematician. It is attributed to the late Dr. Johnson: the delicacy and chasteness of the sentiment, as well as the classical purity of the language, certainly render it a specimen of this species of composition worthy of the pen of that justly-admired writer.—

H. L. P. E.

Non ut nomine paterno consulat;

Nam tali auxilio nil eget;

Sed, ut in hoc infelici campo,

Ubi luctus regnant et pavor,

Mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium:

Hujus enim scripta evolve,

Mentemque tantarum rerum capacem,

Corpori caduco superstitem crede.

The writer of the Adversaria, in a respectable periodical publication,^[75a] observes, that “it would not be easy to do justice to this elegant and nervous sentence, in English.” But, as he has given a very good prose translation of it into our language, the subjoined versification of this was attempted by a young lady, at the request of the writer of these memoirs:—

Not to perpetuate his father’s praise,

For no such aid his lofty fame requir’d,

Did filial piety the marble raise;

But other thoughts the friendly deed inspir’d.

Here, in this tearful vale, where sorrow dwells

And trembling mortals own the reign of fear,

At his command, the sculptur’d tablet tells,

Where hope exists, to dry the wand’rer’s tear.

For, read his works, O man! and then believe,

The mind that grasp’d at systems so sublime,

Beyond the mortal part must ever live,

And bloom, in sacred heav’n’s ethereal clime.