parenthetically, was the now totally-forgotten John West, who had been assistant-teacher of Mathematics in the University of St. Andrews for some time from about 1780 onwards, and of whom Leslie, Ivory, and all the other ablest mathematicians sent forth from that University, had been pupils. Of this man, whom he knew of only by tradition, but whom he regarded as, after Robert Simson of Glasgow, the most original geometrical genius there had been in Scotland, I have heard him talk I know not how often. He would sketch West’s life, from the time of his hard and little-appreciated labours at St. Andrews to his death in the West Indies, whither he had emigrated in despair for some chaplaincy or the like; he would avow his belief that Leslie had derived some of his best ideas from that poor man; and he expressed pleasure at finding I knew something of West independently, and had a copy of West’s rare _Elements of Mathematics_, published in 1784. That book, obsolete now, was, I have no doubt, a manual with Carlyle while he was studying Mathematics in Edinburgh University, as I chance to know it had been with Dr. Chalmers at St. Andrews in _his_ earlier mathematical days.——Of Leslie’s colleague, the celebrated Playfair, formerly in the Mathematical Chair, but since 1805 in that of Natural Philosophy, Carlyle had a less affectionate recollection personally than of Leslie. Sharing, I believe, the common opinion of Playfair’s great merits, and minutely acquainted with the facts of his life, as indeed he was with the biographies of all persons of any mark with whom he had come into contact, he rather resented a piece of injustice which he thought Playfair had done to himself. There were 131 students in the Natural Philosophy Class in 1812–13; and Carlyle, as he assured me, was single in that whole number for having performed and given in every one of all the prescribed exercises, mathematical or other. Another Dumfriesshire student, who came next to him, had failed in one, and that the most difficult. Naturally, at the end of the session, he expected that his certificate would correspond to his distinction in the class; and it was of some consequence to him that it should. But, when he called at Playfair’s house for the certificate, and it was delivered to him by a man-servant, he was a good deal disappointed. The usual form of the wording for a good student was to the effect that the Professor certified that so-and-so had attended the class in such and such a session and had “made good proficiency in his studies.” In Carlyle’s case there was a certain deviation from this form, but only to the effect that he had attended the class and that the Professor “_had reason to know_ that he had made good proficiency in his studies.” I can remember Carlyle’s laugh as he told me of this delicate distinction; and I have always treasured the anecdote as a lesson for professors. They ought to be very careful not only in noting talent on the benches before