At the Restoration, it was expected that he would have received some mark of the royal favour, corre sponding to his deserts ; but, like many others, who had sacrificed their interest in the cause of loyalty, he had the mortification of experiencing the monarch's neglect. His feelings on this occasion were expres sed in the following lines :, Te magis (Vara rtulitnrum, Carole, RCM; Et nem sensit to retliiss minus.
Soon after this period, however, literary distinc tions were rapidly bestowed on him by the best judges of his merit. In 1660, he was elected to the professorship of Greek at Cambridge. In 1662, he was appointed professor of geometry at Gresham College ; and in 1663, he was chosen, by Mr Lucas's , executors, to fill the mathematical chair at Cam bridge. In 1664, he resigned the Gresham lecture, and succeeded by the justly celebrated Dr Ro bert Hook. In 1669, determining to confine his at tention to divinity, lie resigned his professorship at Cambridge, in favour of Isaac Newton, then in his 27th year, whose marvellous attainments Barrow was _ the first to celebrate and to reward.
After his resignation, he applied with great assi duity to the composition of sermons, though he had , not yet obtained any benefice in the church. About seven years before, he had been offered a valuable living, on condition of educating the patron's son ; but he chose to decline a favour, burdened with a stipulation which lie thought simoniacal. In 1670 or 1671, his uncle, the Bishop of St Asaph, gave him a small sinecure in his diocese, and the Bishop of Salisbury gave him one of the prebends in his church ; both of which he retained only till 1672, when, in his 42d year, he was made master of Tri nity College, Cambridge. This promotion lie owed entirely to the high opinion entertained of him by the king, who said, he had bestowed it on the best scholar in England ; and his majesty's choice was ap proved by the almost universal suffrage of the learn-,cd.
From this period he, was engaged chiefly in at tending to the interest of his college, and in writing his theological works, particularly his elaborate trea tise On the Supremacy. In 1676, he was ' vice-chancellor of the university. On the 4th of May 1677, he d.-d suddenly of a fever, brought on, it was believed, by the fatigue of preaching the pas.
i sion sermon at Guildhall Chapel, in the city of Lon don. He was buried in Westminster Abbey. In his person Dr Barrow was below the middle size, and of a slender make, but remarkably firm and robust. His complexion was fair, his eyes grey, his hair au burn, naturally very much curled ; and it was re marked, that in his countenance there wasa striking i resemblance to that of Marcus Brutus, as t is repre sented on ancient medals. He was always negligent of his dress, and immoderately addicted to the use of tobacco ; but in every other particular, his appear ance and deportment tended to ingratiate him with all who saw him. His conduct was uniformly amia ble and dignified, his equanimity unruffled by the storms of the times, his moderation and candour un zbated by the controversies, ecclesiastical and politi cal, in which he engaged. His understanding, clear
and active, was highly improved by the most exten sive and varied reading ; but his imagination, fertile and luxuriant, was not sufficiently controuled by the correctness of his judgment. He was intimately ac quainted with the fathers of the church, and appears to have inherited a share of their credulity. His sermons and theological writings are. contained in three volumes folio. They display a great copious ness of matter, and a still greater copiousness of words. The vigour of the expression is more re markable than either its precision or its gracefulness: but his language, with all its faults, is often more accurate than his reasoning. His unwieldy and un disciplined eloquence frequently surprises, but seldom delights. He possessed the rare talent of being pro„ lix yet nervous, and diffuse without any trace of im becillity or languor. But the discourses of Barrow, though far from being faultless models of style, are entitled to the more substantial praise of b6ing ani mated throughout with the flame of piety and bene volence; so that (to use the words of his friend Dr Tillotson) " he must either be a perfectly good, or prodigiously bad man, that can read them over with out being the better for them." Though the attention of Dr Barrow was principal ly directed to theology in the latter part of his life, yet his mathematical writings have obtained him a high rank among the philosophers of the 17th century. His Lectiones Geonwtriew published in 1669,, are fil led withprofound investigations respecting the pro perties of curvilineal figures ; and in the method of tangents, which he has explained in that work, we clearly discover the germ of the fluxional calculus. This ingenious method, which is a great simplifica tion of the rule given by Fermat, differs in nothing but the notation, from the method of finding the sub tangent by the,differential calculus. The optical lec tures of Dr Barrow are distinguished by the same original views which characterise his lectures on geo metry. His beautiful theory of the apparent place of objects seen by refraction, or reflection, and the elegant determinations which he has given of the form of the images of rectilineal objects received from mirrors and lenses, entitle him to the highest praise.
By pushing these researchei a little farther, Barrow could not fail to have discovered the caustic, or `. Tschirnhausenian curves.
Besides his sermons, which are posthumous, the following works were published by him. Euclidis Elententa, et Data ; Archimedis Opera ; Apollonii Conicorunt, lib. 4. ; Theodosii Sphwrica ; Lectiones °pa= 18 ; Lectiones Geometricw ; Lectio de Spluera; ct Gylindro; Lectiones Mathentaticce; °Imelda Theo logica, Poem:a, Orations. (4-)