that no one could take exception to his proceedings, and he retained through life the favour of the king, to whom he was constantly loyal and respectful. Such was his conciliatory spirit that he was sometimes blamed by extreme men of his own party, and his efforts to preserve peace were taken advantage of by the bishops, and improved to advance their own purposes.
Simson was a constant student, and acquired Hebrew after he was fifty years of age. His favourite studies were the fathers and church history, and because of his wisdom and learning he was much consulted by his clerical brethren. He was successful as a preacher and pastor, and was held in affection by his flock, many of whom, such as the Countess of Mar, the king's cousin, and the Lady Erskine, venerated him as their spiritual father. He found the people of Stirling turbulent, merchants and craftsmen often engaging in bloody contests in the streets, and he restored peace to the community. He remained at his post in time of plague, and discharged his duties at the risk of his life. In his last illness people of all ranks crowded round his bed to receive his blessing, and brought their children with them. After many years of ill-health he died on 31 March 1618, in the sixty-second year of his age and the forty-first year of his ministry, and was buried in the choir of the parish church. By after generations he was spoken of as ‘famous and worthy.’
He married, first, Martha, daughter of James Baron, provost of Edinburgh, by whom he had three sons, who all became ministers, and a daughter, who became wife of J. Gillespie, minister of Alva, and was mother of Patrick and George Gillespie [q. v.] He married, secondly, a daughter of Baron of Kinnaird in Fife.
His publications were:
- ‘A Short Compend of the History of the first Ten Persecutions moved against Christians,’ Edinburgh, 1613–16.
- ‘A Short Compend of the Growth of the Heresies of the Roman Anti-christ,’ Edinburgh, 1616.
These treatises were corrected and republished with the title of ‘The History of the Church since the Days of our Saviour Jesus Christ until the Present Age,’ by the author's brother (London, 1624).
[Scott's Fasti; Life, by his brother, the minister of Dalkeith (Wodrow Soc.), Select Biographies, vol. i.; manuscript Life by Wodrow (Wod. MSS. University of Glasgow).]
SIMSON, ROBERT (1687–1768), mathematician, born on 14 Oct. 1687, was the eldest son of John Simson, a Glasgow merchant, of Kirktonhall, West Kilbride, Ayrshire, by his wife Agnes, daughter of Patrick Simson, minister of Renfrew. Thomas Simson [q. v.] was a younger brother. Robert was admitted to Glasgow University on 3 March 1701–2, graduating M.A. on 16 Nov. 1711 (Munimenta Univ. Glasguen. Maitland Club, iii. 46, 173). He studied under his maternal uncle, John Simson [q. v.], professor of divinity, and distinguished himself by his classical attainments and knowledge of botany. His father intended that he should become a minister, but in the latter part of his university career he turned his attention to mathematics, and after a year's study in London he was elected professor of mathematics at Glasgow University, on 11 March 1711–12, on the resignation of Robert Sinclare (ib. ii. 400–2).
While in London Simson made the acquaintance of several eminent mathematicians, among them Edmund Halley [q. v.] Halley's influence tended to confirm him in his predilection for the works of the Greek geometricians, for the study of which his classical learning fitted him. He first directed his attention to Euclid's porisms, which are only known from the short account in the ‘Collectiones Mathematicæ’ of Pappus of Alexandria. Although Pierre de Fermat claimed to have restored Euclid's work, and Halley had edited the Greek text of the preface to the seventh book of Pappus, Simson was the first to throw real light on the matter. In a paper communicated in 1723 to the Royal Society by James Jurin [q. v.], Simson explained two general propositions in which Pappus summed up several of the porisms. He carried his investigations further in a treatise entitled ‘De Porismatibus Tractatus; quo doctrinam porismatum satis explicatam, et in posterum ab oblivione tutam fore sperat auctor.’ This was published in 1776 among Simson's posthumous works and was supplemented in a memoir by John Playfair [q. v.] (Trans. Royal Soc. Edinburgh, 1794; Heiberg, Litterargeschichtliche Studien über Euklid, 1882, p. 56).
In 1735 Simson published ‘Sectionum Conicarum Libri V’ (Edinburgh, 4to), which he partly intended as an introduction to the treatise by Apollonius of Perga on the subject. Simson had an aversion to the algebraical treatment of ‘conics’ that was prevalent, and in his own work returned to ‘the purer model of antiquity,’ deducing the properties of the various curves without the aid of symbols. An enlarged edition appeared in 1750.
In 1738 he completed the restoration of the ‘Loci Plani’ of Apollonius, a task
