(Isaac), an eminent mathematician and divine, of the last century, was the son of Mr Thomas Barrow a linen draper in London, where he was born, in 1630. He was at first placed at the charter-house school, for two or three years; where his behaviour afforded but little hopes of success in the profession of a scholar, he being fond of fighting, and promoting it among his school-fellows: but being removed from thence, his disposition took a happier turn; and having soon made a great progress in learning, he was admitted a pensioner of Peter House in Cambridge. He now applied himself with great diligence to the study of all parts of literature, especially to that of natural philosophy. He afterwards turned his thoughts to the profession of physic, and made a considerable progress in anatomy, botany, and chemistry; after this he studied chronology, astronomy, and geometry. He then travelled into France and Italy, and in a voyage from Leghorn to Smyrna, gave a proof of his bravery; for the ship being attacked by an Algerine pirate, he stood upon deck, and with the greatest intrepidity fought, till the pirate, perceiving the stout resistance the ship made, sheered off and left her.

At Smyrna he met with a most kind reception from Mr

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(a) There is another anecdote told of him, which not only showed his intrepidity, but an uncommon goodness of disposition, in circumstances where an ordinary share of it would have been probably extinguished. He was once in a gentleman's house in the country, where the necessary was at the end of a long garden, and consequently at a great distance from the room where he lodged: as he was going to it before day, for he Mr Bretton, the English consul, upon whose death he afterwards wrote a Latin elegy. From thence he proceeded to Constantinople, where he received the like civilities from Sir Thomas Bendish the English ambassador, and Sir Jonathan Dawes, with whom he afterwards preserved an intimate friendship. At Constantinople he read over the works of St Chrysostom, once bishop of that see, whom he preferred to all the other fathers. When he had been in Turkey somewhat more than a year, he returned to Venice. From thence he came home in 1659, through Germany and Holland; and was episcopally ordained by bishop Brownrigg. In 1660, he was chosen to the Greek professorship at Cambridge. When he entered upon this province, he intended to have read upon the tragedies of Sophocles; but he altered his intention, and made choice of Aristotle's rhetoric. These lectures having been lent to a friend who never returned them, are irrecoverably lost. July the 16th 1662, he was elected professor of geometry in Gresham college, by the recommendation of Dr Wilkins, master of Trinity college, and afterwards bishop of Chester. Upon the 20th of May 1663 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, in the first choice made by the council after their charter. The same year the executors of Mr Lucas having, according to his appointment, founded a mathematical lecture at Cambridge, they fixed upon Mr Barrow for the first professor; and though his two professorships were not inconsistent with each other, he chose to resign that of Gresham college, which he did May the 20th 1664. In 1669 he resigned his mathematical chair to his learned friend Mr Isaac Newton, being now determined to give up the study of mathematics for that of divinity. Upon quitting his professorship, he was only a fellow of Trinity college, till his uncle gave him a small sinecure in Wales, and Dr Seth Ward bishop of Salisbury conferred upon him a prebend in his church. In the year 1670 he was created doctor in divinity by mandate; and, upon the promotion of Dr Pearlman master of Trinity college to the see of Chester, he was appointed to succeed him by the king's patent bearing date the 13th of February 1672. When the king advanced him to this dignity, he was pleased to say, "he had given it to the best scholar in England." His majesty did not speak from report, but from his own knowledge: the doctor being then his chaplain, he used often to converse with him, and in his humorous way, to call him an "unfair preacher," because he exhausted every subject, and left no room for others to come after him. In 1675 he was chosen vice-chancellor of the university.—The doctor's works are very numerous, and such as do honour to the English nation. They are, 1. Euclid's Elements. 2. Euclid's Data. 3. Optical Letters, read in the public school of Cambridge. 4. Thirteen Geometrical Letters. 5. The Works of Archimedes, the four Books of Appolonius's Conic Sections, and Theodosius's Spherics explained in a new Method. 6. A Lecture, in which Archimedes's Theorems of the Sphere and Cylinder are investigated and briefly demonstrated. 7. Mathematical Lectures, read in the public schools of the university of Cambridge: the above were all printed in Latin; and as to his English works, they are printed together in four volumes folio.—"The name of Dr Barrow (says the reverend and learned Mr Granger) will ever be illustrious for a strength of mind and a compass of knowledge that did honour to his country. He was unrivalled in mathematical learning, and especially in the sublime geometry; in which he has been excelled only by one man, and that man was his pupil the great Sir Isaac Newton. The same genius that seemed to be born only to bring hidden truths to light, to rise to the heights or descend to the depths of science, would sometimes amuse itself in the flowery paths of poetry, and he composed verses both in Greek and Latin. He at length gave himself up entirely to divinity; and particularly to the most useful part of it, that which has a tendency to make men wiser and better. He has, in his excellent sermons on the Creed, solved every difficulty and removed every obstacle that opposed itself to our faith, and made divine revelation as clear as the demonstrations in his own Euclid. In his sermons he knew not how to leave off writing till he had exhausted his subject; and his admirable Discourse on the Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor, took him up three hours and an half in preaching. This excellent person, who was a bright example of Christian virtue, as well as a prodigy of learning, died on the 4th of May 1677, in the 47th year of his age;" and was interred in Westminster abbey, where a monument, adorned with his bust, was soon after erected, by the contribution of his friends.