At Constantinople, the see of St. Chrysostom, he read over all the works of that Father, whom he much preferred before any of the others, and remained in Turkey above a year. Returning thence to Venice, as soon as he was landed, the ship took fire, and with all the goods was burnt, but none of the people had any harm. He came thence home " through Germany and Holland; and some part of these travels and observations are also related in his Poems. The term of time was now somewhat past, before which all fellows of Trinity college are by the oath obliged to take upon them priestly orders, or quit the college: he had no rest in his mind till he got himself ordainedy, notwithstanding the times were then very unsettled, the church of England at a very low ebb, and circumstances much altered from what they were when he took the oath, wherewith others satisfied themselves in the neglect of orders. When the church and state flourished upon the king's restoration, his friends expected great things for him who had suffered and deserved so much: yet nothing came; so that he was sensible enough to say, (which he has not left among his Poems 2,) Te magis optavit rediturum, Carole, nemo, u In 1659. x Seven years after the degree of M.A. See note i. y By Brownrigg bishop of Exeter, and master of Catherine Hall, who, after being ejected from his see by the parliament, lived in retirement at Sunning in Berkshire. z He wrote an ode upon that occasion, in which he introduces Britannia congratulating the king upon his return. See vol. VIII. p. 496. It must have been during a visit to London, soon after the restoration, that he preached at St. Laurence Jewry for Dr. Wilkins, master of Trinity; when according to Dr. Pope the following extraordinary scene took place: "At the time appointed he << came, with an aspect pale and 66 meagre and unpromising, slovenly "and carelessly dressed, his collar un"buttoned, his hair uncombed, &c." An alarm of fire having been given, great confusion ensued from the congregation endeavouring to escape; but the preacher, "seeming not to "take notice of this disturbance, pro"ceeds, names his text, and preached "his sermon, to two or three ga"thered, or rather left together, of "which number, as it fortunately 66 happened, Mr. Baxter, that emi"nent nonconformist was one; who 1660, he was without a competitor chosen a to the Greek professorship in Cambridge; of which I can only say, that some friend (to himself I mean) thought fit to borrow, and never to restore those Lecturesb. July 16, 1662c, he was chosen to the Geometry Lecture at Gresham College, vacant by the death of Mr. Laurence Rook. Dr. Wilkins, who, while Trinity college had the happiness of his mastership, throughly observed and much esteemed him, and was always zealous to promote worthy men and generous designs, did interpose vigorously for his assistance, well knowing that few others could fill the place of such a predecessor; he not only discharged the duty incumbent on him, but supplied the absence of his learned colleague Dr. Pope, astronomy professor; and among other of his Lectures were divers of the Projections of the Sphere; which he lent out also, and many other papers we hear no "afterwards gave Dr. Wilkins a vi"sit, and commended the sermon to "that degree, that he said he never "heard a better discourse." The rest of his small audience, with one exception, was not so well pleased: and some of the parishioners waited upon Dr. Wilkins, to expostulate "with him, why he suffered such an "ignorant, scandalous fellow to have "the use of his pulpit.-They won"dered he should permit such a man "to preach before them, who looked "like a starved cavalier, who had "been long sequestered, and out of "his living for delinquency, and came up to London to beg, now the king 66 was restored." Mr. Baxter, happening to be present at this expostulation, and being appealed to by Dr. Wilkins, said that Mr. Barrow "preached so well, that he could "willingly have been his auditor all "day long" upon which the com more ofd. He so well answered all expectation, and performed what Dr. Wilkins had undertaken for him, that when (1663) Mr. Lucas founded a Mathematic Lecture at Cambridge, the same good and constant friend recommended him to the executors, Mr. Raworth and Mr. Buck, who very readily conferred on him that employment: and the better to secure the end of so noble and useful a foundation, he took care that himself and successors should be bound to leave yearly to the university ten written Lectures; and those of his which have been, and others yet to be printed, will best give an account how well he acquitted himself of that servicef. But after that learned piece Geometricæ Lectiones had been some while in the world, he had heard only of two persons that had read it through; these two were monsieur Slusius of Liege, and Mr. Gregory of Scotland, two that might be reckoned instead of thousands: yet the little relish that such things met with did help to loosen him from these speculations, and the more engage his inclination to the study of morality and divinity, which had always been so predominant, that when he commented on Archimedes, he could not forbear to prefer and admire much more Suarez for his book De Legibus: and before his Apollonius I find written this divine ejaculation : Ὁ Θεὸς γεωμετρεῖ. Tu autem, Domine, quantus es geometra? quum enim hæc scientia nullos terminos habeat; cum in sempiternum d His Latin Oration, previous to his Lectures, is preserved, and may be seen in vol. VIII. p. 322. e On the twentieth of May in this same year, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, in the first choice made by the council after their charter. About this time also he was offered a very good living: but the condition annexed of teaching the patron's son made him refuse it, as too like a simoniacal contract. Ward. Biog. Brit. VOL. I. f His prefatory Oration, spoken in the mathematical school, March 14, 1664, is still extant, and may be seen in vol. VIII. p. 341. On May the 20th in this year he resigned his lectureship in Gresham college, though the two situations were not incompatible. He had also been invited to take the charge of the Cotton library; but after a short trial he declined it, and resolved to settle in the university. b novorum theorematum inventioni locus relinquatur, etiam penes humanum ingenium, tu uno hæc omnia intuitu perspecta habes, absque catena consequentiarum, absque tædio demonstrationum. Ad cætera pene nihil facere potest intellectus noster; et tanquam brutorum phantasia videtur non nisi incerta quædam somniare, unde in iis quot sunt homines tot existunt fere sententiæ: in his conspiratur ab omnibus, in his humanum ingenium se posse aliquid, imo ingens aliquid et mirificum visum est, ut nihil magis mirum; quod enim in cæteris pene ineptum in hoc efficax, sedulum, prosperum, &c. Te igitur vel ex hac re amare gaudeo, te suspicor, atque illum diem desiderare suspiriis fortibus, in quo purgata mente et claro oculo non hæc solum omnia absque hac successiva et laboriosa imaginandi cura, verum multo plura et majora ex tua bonitate et immensissima sanctissimaque benignitate conspicere et scire concedetur, &c. The last kindness and honour he did to his mathematic chair was to resign it (1669) to so worthy a friend and successor as Mr. Isaac Newton, fixing his resolution to apply himself entirely to divinity; and he took a course very convenient for his public person as a preacher, and his private as a Christian; for those subjects which he thought most important to be considered for his own use, he cast into the method of sermons for the benefit of others, and herein was so exact, as to write some of them four or five times over. And now he was only a fellow of Trinity college, till my lord bishop of St. Asaphs gave him a small sinecure in Wales, and the right reverend Seth, lord bishop of Salisbury, (who very much valued his conversation,) a prebend in his church; g His uncle, Dr. Isaac Barrow. See note b. h Dr. Pope supplies the following information: "Some time after," i. e. not long after the restoration, "the "bishop of Salisbury, I mean Dr. "Ward, invited Dr. [Mr.] Barrow "to live with him, not as a chaplain, "but rather as a friend and compa"nion yet he did frequently do the "duty, if the domestic chaplain was "absent. Whilst he was there, the the advantages of both which he bestowed in a way of charity, and parted with them as soon as he was made master of his college, (1672i,) he and his relations being by that time out of a necessitous condition: the patent for his mastership being so drawn for him as it had been for some others, with permission to marry, he caused to be altered, thinking it not agreeable with the statutes, from which he desired no dispensation. He had hitherto possessed but a scanty estate, which yet was made easy to him by a contented mind, and not made a trouble by envy at more plentiful fortunes: he could in patience possess his soul when he had little else; and now with the same decency and moderation could maintain his character under the temptations of prosperity. sum for a philosopher to desire: "what would you do with so much? "I would, said he, give it my sister "for a portion, that would procure "her a good husband: which sum "in few months after he received, "for putting a life into the corps of "his new prebend: after which he "resigned it to Mr. Corker, a fellow "of Trinity College in Cambridge. "All the while he continued with "the bishop of Salisbury, I was his "bedfellow, and a witness of his in"defatigable study: at that time he i In 1670 he was created doctor of divinity by mandate. His patent of the mastership bears date February 13, 1672: and he was admitted the 27th of the same month. "He was "then the king's chaplain in ordi |