remarkable qualities he possessed. They began to be developed at an early age, and he was able to read very difficult pieces during his first year in college. His vocal powers however were not at all extraordinary, and it is therefore perhaps the more remarkable that he should have been so very fond of the science of music, as to have devoted all his powers to the investigation of its principles. It was a favorite recreation with him silently to peruse the pieces of the greatest masters, as Handel and Haydn, carry. ing on all parts at a time with a full comprehension, and (as he assured me) with a perfect enjoyment of the harmony. He passed many a leisure hour in this mental performance of Handel's grand Hallelujah Chorus. This piece in its greatest extent, the Lock Hospital collection, and the Harmonia Sacra, furnished his favorite amusement. As yet he had hardly called in the aid of instruments. He however at length procured an organ, and had it set up in his room. His knowl edge of the principles of musical harmony was so familiar, that he was at once able to perform pieces of moderate difficulty in all parts. He did not finally attain to an excellence in performing which was anticipated from so promising a beginning, probably because he would not devote the time to it which is indispensable to excellence. The love of simplicity which characterized his literary taste, was also conspic uous both in his selection of pieces, and in his performance on the organ. He probably never brought himself to attempt a single flourish. I have heard accomplished masters speak with high admiration, both of his classical taste in music, and of his profound acquaintance with its scientific principles. The original ity of his taste is conspicuous in this, that as soon as he fell in with the compositions of celebrated Eu ropean masters, he could no longer

endure the jingling homespun style of church music then generally prevalent in our country towns, although this was the style to which he had always been accustomed from his infancy. Among his pa pers will doubtless be found a number of pieces of his own composi tion. Some few of them I heard him perform, but do not know whe ther he bestowed sufficient attention upon any piece, to render it a fair specimen of his talents for musical composition.

Of Professor Fisher's great mathematical powers, it would be easy for me to recall numerous illustra tions. The following incident may serve as an example. One evening after tea we set out for a walk, and on our way stopped a moment at a bookseller's. Happening to take up a number of the New York Monthly Magazine, I observed several mathematical questions which were un derstood to be proposed by Doctor Adrain. One of them, as being pe culiarly difficult, was offered as a prize question, the premium being the current volume of the magazine. I pointed it out to Mr. Fisher. He read it over hastily, and immediately afterwards we resumed our walk. Reaching that delightful lawn, the New Haven Green, we took a few turns over it, conversing on some common-place topic, until the time for our evening lessons reminded us to return to our rooms. Mr. Fisher apologized for a temporary absence of mind by saying, "Excuse me, was thinking of that problem," but added shortly after, "I've got it.” I

accompanied him to his room, but observing him to be making some preparation to proceed with the problem, I retired. Next morning he showed me the solution completed, which I think he had per formed in three different ways. The one which had occurred to him in our walk, was that which pleased him most, and it was the one which he sent to the Monthly Magazine,

I

with the signature of "X." It was inserted in the next number of the Magazine as the solution of "X of New Haven," the latter part being probably derived from the postmark. It was particularly commended for its elegance, and among a number of competitors, the prize was awarded to "X of New Haven." Happening to be at the bookstore when the succeeding number announcing the decision arrived, I immediately went to inform Mr. F. of his success, which I did by inquiring "if he could lend me one of the numbers of the Monthly Magazine." He readily understood me, as he intimated by a significant smile which he labored in vain to conceal; but he blushed deeply for having betrayed his consciousness of success.

Speaking of Doctor Adrain reminds me of the desire Mr. Fisher expressed, at an early period of his mathematical studies, of becoming acquainted with that gentleman, and the great pleasure he derived from a personal interview. The same feelings led him to seek the acquaintance of Dr. Bowditch; and the delight which he experienced in the conversation of that great man, was an earnest of the happiness he would have felt, had he been permitted to enjoy a familiar intercourse with the mathematicians and philosophers of France and Britain. Although he was by nature diffident in manners, he was at all times fully master of his intellectual powers, and his mind would run clear when his knees trembled. He could therefore approach the greatest minds with composure, when he contemplated an entrance into a mixed company with dread.

The extent to which mathematicians have pushed their inquiries, and the profoundness of their views, may in some degree be estimated by the fact, that one who could solve very difficult problems with almost intuitive readiness, declared that he Vol. I.

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had frequently paused over mathematical writers of the higher order, in astonishment at the human intel. lect. The great distinction to which Professor Fisher attained as a mathematician, I am not disposed to ascribe to any peculiarity in the structure of his intellect, but merely to the application of a great mind to a great subject, where its powers could have complete scope. In any other subject, where strength and penetration of mind were peculiarly requisite, his success would have been, and indeed was, proportionally great. I do not rank him so much among men of genius, where some peculiar power is in great excess above the rest, and where, as is sometimes the case, an extraordinary talent for music, or painting, or mechanical invention, is associated with general mediocrity or even imbecility of intellect; but I place him rather among the men of gigantic minds, where all the parts are great, but all still well balanced, and in harmonious proportion. These are the men of sound judgment, of common sense, who look at subjects in all their parts and relations; they are the Galileos, the Bacons, the Newtons, the Edwardses, the Washingtons, and not the Paracelsuses, the Keplers, the Fieldings, the Voltaires. Genius often suddenly reaches its acme; but powers of mind like those of Professor Fisher, although probably all developed at the age of twenty eight, would never during his life, had he lived many years longer, have ceased to move onward with constantly accelerated velocity. He was no less a metaphysician than a mathematician, and nothing could exceed the terseness of his translations in the learned languages, especially of a writer so dense as Tacitus. Though a man of intellect rather than of imagination, yet he was a most acute critic upon the peculiar excellencies and defects of the poets and novelists; and while an undergraduate, he as

tonished his classmates, and elicited an unusual compliment from President Dwight, for a disputation which he read on the subject of "banks." One would hardly expect to find that the same mind which could devise new methods of finding the orbits of comets, would also be critical in punctuation, in the planting of shrubbery, in the structure of a court-yard, or even in apparel and equipage. But Professor Fisher's love of symmetry and propriety, in matters of taste, and of correctness in the scholar, made him a keen observer of life and manners, as well as a rare proficient in literary criticism. This habit of minute observation, I had great opportunities of noticing during our frequent walks about the city of New Haven. His criticisms upon the style of different buildings, (for architecture was his favorite among the arts,) upon the arrangement of the streets, trees, fences, and gardens, as well as upon a variety of inferior objects, such as are daily met with in a market-town, were truly original and instructive; and I recur to those seasons, which seemed only the ramblings of an idle hour, as some of the most agree able and profitable of my life. I have rarely if ever met with any one who could assign so satisfactory a reason for his opinions on common-place subjects, which most people take up without supposing them to be worth a reason.

These attributes of our friend, the less as well as the greater, fitted him to be an accomplished critic. The various talents which have been enumerated; his clearness and comprehensiveness; his keenness of observation, extending to the minutest particulars; his delicate vein of satire, (a talent probably known to but few;) the extent of his information, the universality of his taste, and the soundness of his judgment;-these are qualities which, combined as they were in such ample measure and due proportion, fitted him to

wield, with powerful sway, the sceptre of criticism. Nature evidently intended him for thinking and writing rather than for speaking. His elocution was forcible and distinct, and his emphasis was laid with exact discrimination, but, invincibly opposed as he was to the cultivation of the graces of oratory, (because they did not seem to him to be given him by nature,) he generally, in public speaking, appeared far below himself. Of this disadvantage he was conscious to excess; and the apprehension that the want of rhetorical powers would be the means of burying his other talents in obscurity, contributed not a little to enhance those gloomy forebodings in which he was inclined to indulge, previous to his appointment to the mathematical chair. Knowing well the unfavorable anticipations which he had formed of his success in the world, I hastened, on learning his appointment, to announce to him the pleasing intelligence. It was on the occasion of the inauguration of President Day. Mr. Fisher, through indisposition, was prevented from attending the public exercises in the morning, and did not expect to come out in the afternoon. I found him feverish and dejected, and not to surprise him too much, told him the news in a manner somewhat ambiguous. He therefore would not credit the intelligence until after repeated assurances, but believed me in jest. But the time thus gained to set his guard was well employed; he betrayed scarce any emotion, but the effect on his spirits was obvious, for he soon left his bed and joined the procession to witness the ceremonies of the afternoon. By subsequent conversations I learned that the appointment fulfilled his utmost wishes. It came also at a very favorable time, although quite unexpected. His gloomy forebodings of sinking into insignificance were at once dissipated; and how could the prospect of

a field so well suited to his talents and his inclination, where he was conscious of being able to sustain his part with such distinguished advantage, fail to animate his hopes and awaken his joy and gratitude! It was shortly after, in a morning walk, that he disclosed to me his glad emotions, and expressed his thankfulness to that kind Providence which had placed him in the only sphere in which he supposed himself moving with any respectability, in a sphere indeed consonant to his warmest wishes, and to the evident designs of nature itself. Guarded as he habitually was, lest any one should discover his emotions and impute them to weakness, it is probable that very few of his friends were aware how much this appointment contributed to raise him from a dejected, desponding state, and to arouse his slumbering energies.

From this moment, he began to digest those great plans of personal improvement and extensive usefulness, which he pursued with such steadiness and alacrity during the remainder of his short but distinguished career. Few men ever sacrificed so much of feeling and inclination, in order to do what reason and duty decided ought to be done. So determined was he to keep reason at the helm, when duty came in conflict with inclination, that some have not given him credit for half the sensibility he actually possess ed. In aiming steadily at the greatest possible good, he resisted every temptation which might allure him from the path that led to it. Selfknowledge, and from that self-discipline, were objects of his constant and unremitted effort. A singular instance occurs to me of his determination to act according to the dictates of reason in opposition to feeling. He had for some time been afflicted with a severe tooth-ache, and, although the tooth was carious, he felt the usual reluctance to having it extracted. To overcome this

feeling, he adopted the following method. He took his pen and set down the arguments pro and con in numerical order; and finding those in the affirmative preponderate so much, he rose from the table, resorted to a dentist, and submitted to the operation. Finding it less painful than he had apprehended, and being now able to contemplate the instruments with pleasure for the relief they had afforded, although he had just before thought of them with great abhorrence, he inferred that the most favorable opportunity for undergoing this operation, is immediately after having a tooth extracted; and, in the spirit of true philosophy, he brought his theory to the test of experiment, by having a second tooth, which was occasionally troublesome, extracted on the spot.

I have hinted that Mr. Fisher had much more sensibility than many supposed him to have. Although I do not suppose that he possessed this attribute in a very high degree, it may still be affirmed that his feelings were delicate and acute. I could hardly recollect an instance of any mistake that he made in all his recitations when a student; but inconsiderable as his inaccuracies appeared to others, he told me afterwards that he had been occasionally so mortified by a mistake, that it was hardly out of his mind for several succeeding days, and he could not meet his instructor but with shame and confusion. This may look to some like inordinate ambition, and perhaps it really implies too much of that feeling; but other obvious reasons can be assigned for the emotions which he experienced from causes so trifling. He had to maintain the character of the first scholar in his class, a place awarded to him by the suffrages of all, but a place which he thought was dishonored by any inaccuracy. He felt, therefore, that a mistake degraded him both from the rank

which had been assigned him, and from that high standing which he contemplated as the only one worthy of his aim. The same elevated standard was afterwards kept continually in view, when an instructor; and he used to say that nothing was worthy of the confidence of the pupil but the greatest possible accuracy on the part of the teacher, and that mistakes on his part sullied his character like lapses from virtue. It is probable indeed that he was not indifferent to fame; but his ambition was of a higher order than that which would attach any great importance to incidents like the foregoing. That he was not eager for popularity, in the sense in which it is usually received in college, is obvious from the independence with which he maintained his share of the discipline, and the spirit with which he braved censure and obloquy whenever they were to be met in the faithful discharge of his duty. If like other men of talents he ever had any propensity to be vain, no one surely ever subdued it more completely; no one ever had a stronger perception of the weakness it implies, or guarded himself more effectually against betraying it. In the unreserved confidence which subsisted between us for several years, I do not remember a single instance, even in the most private communications, when that infirmity was fairly developed. So aware was he of the liability of distinguished men to exhibit vanity, or at least to be suspected of it, that his feelings were wounded by any allusion to his superiority, because it seemed to imply that he had the weakness to be pleased with flattery. On subjects of this kind his delicacy was remarkable, and even, as I thought, excessive; for it was hardly safe to carry the confidence of friendship so far as to allude to any of the honors he had acquired. This was one reason why he avoided rather than courted those topics of

conversation which afforded him pe. culiar opportunities for display. He did not like to converse on mathematical subjects in mixed company, and was mortified when any one seemed to introduce such topics on his account, because it perhaps implied either that he would be fond of such an opportunity to exhibit himself, or (what he disliked as much) it indicated an opinion that he was unable to converse on other subjects. In his aversion to open praise, while he was so deeply mortified at disgrace and so studious to acquire solid reputation, he seems to have resembled the late Mr. Cavendish, a distinguished British philosopher, who is said to have been so studious of accuracy, that hardly an error was ever detected in all he wrote, and still so averse to flattery as to have retired in confusion from a meeting of the Philosophical Society, because in an introduction to a learned foreigner, his merits were mentioned with more freedom than suited his modesty.

The character of Mr. Fisher as a man of honor may be judged of by the following incident. It was accidentally known that while a stu dent, he had been admitted into very close confidence by his tutor, who was scarcely able to read a syllable on account of a chronic weakness of the eyes. Several years afterwards, one of Mr. Fisher's companions incidentally alluded to the privations of that gentleman, and intimated to Mr. F. his knowledge of the fact, that he supplied the deficiency. He declined any conversation on the subject, but courteously drew off his friend to another topic. A subsequent conver sation enabled me to see the prin ciple by which he was governed, which was this: In order to keep a secret faithfully, we must not let it be known that we possess it.

Professor Fisher, in accordance with both his nature and habit, was very cautious in forming his reli