Barrow Isaac

Barrow, Isaac, D.D., was born in London in 1630, being the son of Charles I.'s linen-draper. From the Charter House he passed to St. Peter's, and afterwards to Trinity College, Cambridge, and studied with a view to medicine. He then made a prolonged tour in Europe and in the Levant, and at Constantinople was influenced by reading the works of Chrysostom. On his return to England in 1659 he was ordained, and appointed to the chair of Greek at Cambridge, being later on chosen as Gresham Professor of Geometry, and elected F.R.S. From 1664 to 1669 he was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at his university, but resigned in favour of his illustrious pupil, Isaac Newton, and devoted himself to theology. He received a prebendal stall at Salisbury, and in 1672 the king made him Bishop of Chester. He died in 1677, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. As a mathematician he showed ability, but not genius. His Sermons, the only important contribution he made to literature, are solid, erudite, and closely reasoned, hut their heavy style is only relieved by occasional passages of eloquence.