to run loose in the garden at night, as a protection against thieves. Barrow was walking in the garden before daybreak, when the mastiff attacked him; he caught the brute by the throat, threw him down, and would have killed him; but he reflected that this would be unjust, as the dog was only doing his duty. He therefore called aloud for help, keeping the dog pinned down until some one from the house heard his cries and released him. Barrow had a keen sense of humour and a readiness of repartee, as the following story will show. He was attending at court as the king's chaplain, when he met the famous Earl of Rochester, who thus accosted him: ‘Doctor, I am yours to the shoetie.’ Barrow: ‘My lord, I am yours to the ground.’ Rochester: ‘Doctor, I am yours to the centre.’ Barrow: ‘My lord, I am yours to the antipodes.’ Rochester (scorning to be foiled by a musty old piece of divinity, as he termed him): ‘Doctor, I am yours to the lowest pit of hell.’ Barrow (turning on his heel): ‘There, my lord, I leave you.’
Barrow's theological works were published soon after his death under the editorship of Dean Tillotson, in four volumes folio (1683–9), but not because Tillotson and Abraham Hill were left by his will his literary executors; for Barrow died intestate. In fact, he had nothing to leave except his books, which were so well chosen that they were sold for more than their prime cost, their value no doubt being enhanced by the fact that they had belonged to so famous a man. Barrow's papers would naturally revert to his father, who survived him for more than ten years; and according to Mr. Ward, the old man entrusted them to the care of Tillotson and Hill, with power to print such as they thought proper. Tillotson took immense pains over his editorial labours, which extended over ten years; but one part of those labours we could certainly have very well spared. He thought it necessary to alter many words which seemed to him incorrect or obsolete, and to subdivide the sermons, so that they differ both in matter and extent from the manuscript copies. Tillotson's edition was reissued in three folio volumes in 1716, 1722, and 1741. Editions were published by the Clarendon Press in 1818 and 1830, and another by the Rev. James Hamilton at Edinburgh in 1841–2. Mr. Hughes published a further edition in 1830, omitting Barrow's learned quotations, and adding summaries of the discourses. But by far the best, indeed the only complete edition, is that which was prepared for the syndics of the Cambridge University Press by the Rev. A. Napier in 1859. Here at last we have the true text restored from Tillotson's ‘improvements,’ the acquisition of Barrow's manuscripts by Trinity College enabling the accomplished editor to effect the restoration. There is a scholarly preface, which contains, among other things, the best bibliography of Barrow's theological works which is extant. An unpretending little work, entitled ‘The Beauties of Barrow,’ by B. S., Esq., barrister-at-law, 1846, is worth notice as giving, in 274 very short pages, well-chosen specimens of Barrow's style, which may be acceptable to the reader who has not time to wade through nine or ten octavo volumes. It is satisfactory to learn that Barrow's father received from Brabazon Aylmer, the bookseller, for the copyright of his son's theological works, 470l. It should be added that the sermons published under Barrow's name by Dr. (afterwards Bishop) Prince Lee were not, in the opinion of Dr. Whewell and Mr. Napier (two excellent judges), really Barrow's.
Whewell published an edition of Barrow's mathematical works in 1860. They include ‘Euclidis Elementa’ (1655); ‘Euclidis Data’ (1657); ‘Mathematicæ Lectiones’ (1664–6); ‘Lectiones Opticorum Phænomenωn’ (1669); ‘Lectiones Opticæ et Geometricæ’ (1669, 1670, 1674); ‘Archimedis Opera;’ ‘Apollonii Conicorum lib. iv.;’ ‘Theodosii Sphærica nova methodo illustrata et succincte demonstrata’ (1675); ‘Lectio in qua Theoremata Archimedis de sphæra et cylindro per methodum indivisibilium investigata … exhibentur’ (1678). All these were written in Latin, but some of them have been translated by Messrs. Kirby and Stephen and others. Barrow's Latin poems, ‘Opuscula,’ are included in the ninth volume of Mr. Napier's edition.
