wife and he beat the man;
And the Englishman is a very G---- d----."

The charges were revived in a much later day, and the defense might have
given some trouble. But Place, who had been the foreman at the inquest,
came forward, and settled the question in a few lines. Every one knew that
the old Radical was quite free of all disposition to suppress truth from
wish to curry favor with royalty.

John Speed,[453] the author of the _English History_,[454] (1632) which
Bishop Nicolson[455] calls the best chronicle extant, was a man, like
Place, of no education, but what he gave himself. The bishop says he would
have done better if he had a better training: but what, he adds, could have
been expected from a tailor! This Speed was, as well as Place. But he was
{202} released from manual labor by Sir Fulk Grevil,[456] who enabled him
to study.

A STORY ON SIMSON.

I have elsewhere noticed that those who oppose the mysteries of algebra do
not ridicule them; this I want the cyclometers to do. Of the three who
wrote against the great point, the negative quantity, and the uses of 0
which are connected with it, only one could fire a squib. That Robert
Simson[457] should do such a thing will be judged impossible by all who
admit tradition. I do not vouch for the following; I give it as a proof of
the impression which prevailed about him:

He used to sit at his open window on the ground floor, as deep in geometry
as a Robert Simson ought to be. Here he would be accosted by beggars, to
whom he generally gave a trifle, he roused himself to hear a few words of
the story, made his donation, and instantly dropped down into his depths.
Some wags one day stopped a mendicant who was on his way to the window with
"Now, my man, do as we tell you, and you will get something from that
gentleman, and a shilling from us besides. You will go and say you are in
distress, he will ask you who you are, and you will say you are Robert
Simson, son of John Simson of Kirktonhill." The man did as he was told;
Simson quietly gave him a coin, and dropped off. The wags watched a little,
and saw him rouse himself again, and exclaim "Robert Simson, son of John
Simson of Kirktonhill! why, that is myself. That man must be an impostor."
Lord Brougham tells the same story, with some difference of details.

{203}

BARON MASERES.

Baron Maseres[458] was, as a writer, dry; those who knew his writings will
feel that he seldom could have taken in a jo