discourses, was that of copying out the finest passages of classical and ecclesiastical writers, particularly Demosthenes and Chrysostom; whence he formed a magazine of rich materials, from which he might draw out stores for all subjects. His manuscripts in Trinity College bear ample testimony to this practice, a very considerable portion of them being occupied by those excerpta. By such diligence he acquired that copious and majestic style which induced the illustrious Lord Chatham to recommend the study of Barrow's sermons to his still more illustrious son ;* by this he also has acquired those profound views on theological subjects, which induced Warburton himself to declare that in reading Barrow he was obliged to think. His indefatigable habits of study, and his own appreciation of the fruits of it, are thus pleasantly enough described by Dr. Pope.t "All the while he continued with the Bishop of Salisbury I was a witness of his indefatigable study. At that time he applied himself wholly to divinity, having given a divorce to mathematics, and poetry, and the rest of the belles lettres, wherein he was profoundly versed, making it his chief, if not his only business, to write in defence of the church of England, and compose sermons, whereof he had great store, and I need not say, very good. "We were once going from Salisbury to London, he in the coach with the Bishop, and I on horseback: as he was entering the coach, I perceived his pockets strutting out near half a foot, and said to him, What have you got in your pockets? He replied, Sermons. Sermons, said I; He read Barrow's Sermons at the desire of Lord Chatham, who thought them admirably adapted to furnish the copia verborum. Tomline's Life of Pitt, Vol. i. p. 13. 8vo. + Life of Bishop Ward, p. 143. : give them to me; my boy shall carry them in his portmanteau, and ease you of that luggage. But, said he, suppose your boy should be robbed? That's pleasant; said I do you think there are persons padding on the road for sermons? Why, what have you? said he. It may be five or six guineas. I hold my sermons at a greater rate, for they cost me much pains and time.-Well then, said I, if you'll secure my five or six guineas against lay-padders, I'll secure your sermons against ecclesiastical highwaymen. This was agreed; he emptied his pockets, and filled my portmanteau with his divinity, and we had the good fortune to come safe to our journey's end, and to bring both our treasures to London." Dr. Pope farther informs us, "that he was unmercifully cruel to a lean carcass, not allowing it sufficient meat or sleep :" that "during the winter months, and some part of the rest, he rose before it was light, being never without a tinder-box;" and that he has known him frequently to rise after his first sleep, light and burn out his candle, and then return to bed before day.* Soon after his resignation of the Lucasian professorship, Barrow's uncle, who had been translated to the see of St. Asaph, gave him a small sinecure in Wales, and Dr. Seth Ward, bishop of Salisbury, who highly esteemed his character, and delighted in his society, collated him to the prebend of Yatminster in his cathedral. Just before he received this piece of preferment, Dr. Pope heard him say, I wish I had five hundred pounds. He replied, That's a great sum for a philosopher to desire; what would you do with so much? I would give it, said he, to my sister for a Mr. Hill declares that he saw written with Barrow's own hand at the end of his Apollonius, April 14. Intra hæc temporis inter_ Maii 10. valla peractum hoc opus. portion, and that would procure her a good husband. This sum, a few months afterwards, he actually received for putting a new life into the corps of his prebend ;* after which he resigned it to Mr. Corker, one of the fellows of Trinity, who was succeeded in it by Dr. Colbatch. He also resigned his sinecure, the profits of which, as well as those of his stall, were always applied by him to charitable purposes: so much did his mind soar above the sordid love of gain. In the year 1670 he had been created D.D. by royal mandate, and on the promotion of Dr. John Pearson to the see of Chester, Barrow attained the utmost height of his wishes, in the mastership of his college, on which he entered February 27, 1672, about four years after his old friend Dr. Duport had been restored to the bosom of Alma Mater as head of Magdalene. When the king advanced Barrow to this dignity, for which he was indebted neither to the cabals of party, nor to the caprice of fortune, his Majesty was pleased to observe, with great justness of remark, that he had given it to the best scholar in his kingdom ; an opinion not founded altogether on common report; for the Doctor had been some time one of the court chaplains, and had on several occasions held conversations with the king, who good-humoredly called him an unfair preacher; since he so intirely exhausted his subject as to leave room for no one to come after him. The patent for his mastership having been drawn up for A copy of the indenture made for this purpose between Dr. Barrow and Mr. Sergeant Strode, of Leweston, in the county of Dorset, is preserved in Cole's Mss. Vol. xxix. p. 36. Barrow was installed May 16, 1671., and was the thirty-eighth prebendary from the foundation: the first was Wm. St. John, who died in 1297. him, as it had been for some others, with a permission to marry, he had that clause erased, considering it contrary to the intent of the statutes, from which he desired no sort of dispensation. In truth he had determined to dedicate himself intirely to the interests of his college, which was to him, as Hector was to Helen, in place of all other relatives: so completely did he justify the sentiment of his old shipmate, the captain of the vessel in which he sailed from Leghorn; a jovial tar, with whom Barrow seems to have been a great favorite, and who used sometimes, when the wine circulated after dinner in the cabin, jocosely to pledge him in the name of his mistress, the college. The verses in which he alludes to this circumstance, when describing the honest captain's convivial qualities, are not among the worst of the composition. Ah! quoties festo cum stridere mensa tumultu Sic pateram accipiens ut nunquam lætius ullam, No sooner was Barrow settled in his lodge, to the great joy not only of the fellows, but of the university and all lovers of learning, than he declined some allowances usually made to his predecessors; and, as Dr. Pope observes, to show his humility and care of the college revenue, "he remitted to them the charge of keeping a coach for his time, which they had done a long while before for other masters." How different was his conduct in this respect to that great scholar who afterwards occupied his place, and whose avarice not less than his tyrannical disposition kept the Society in a state of tumult and misery for nearly half a century! As there is one act which has above all others signalised Dr. Barrow's reign at Trinity, I shall offer no excuse for dwelling on it more at length. For some time a scheme had been agitated at Cambridge to erect a theatre like that with which Archbishop Sheldon had adorned the sister university; and which would have been better adapted to the disputations which were held on all public occasions within the walls of St. Mary's Church: also to provide a better room for the public library, which had considerably increased; and public schools more suitable to the convenience and dignity of the university. As similar projects are at this very time in agitation, and plans from some of the most eminent architects of the day have been actually procured for the erection of a new library, &c. and as the reader may not dislike to compare them with the ideas entertained by our ancestors on such a subject, I have extracted the following passage from an oration spoken by Dr. Barrow at a public commencement, which from internal evidence seems to have taken place in July 1675. Hisce nimirum præludiis ad illa viam sternimus, spem erigimus, animosque comparamus augustiora nostræ Reip: incrementa; Theatrum utique quod disputantium jurgiis hoc templum exoneret, et quò sannionum ineptiæ relegentur; Bibliothecam, quæ supellectilem nostram librariam, haud sanè curtam, aptè capiat, et quam tot optimi auctores laxius atque liberiùs incolant, tam arcto limite minus æstuantes; Scholas denique publicas, illustris nostræ Reip: amplitudine dignas, quibusque pulcherrimam et suavissimam istam Germanam nostram, |