Biographical Notice xvii

1825, by Mr The Head-master at this time was the Rev. T. W.

Huskisson.
Peile, afterwards Head-master of Repton, and the mathematical master was
Mr Marratt. A contemporary at the school was Sir William Leece Drinkwater,
afterwards First Deemster, Isle of Man. At this school Sylvester remained
less than two years. In February 1830 he was awarded the first prize in the
Mathematical School, and was so far beyond the other scholars that he could
not be included in any class. While here, also, he was awarded a prize of
500 dollars for solving a question in arrangements, to the great satisfaction of
the Contractors of Lotteries in the United States, the question being referred
to him by the intervention of his elder brother in New York. At this early
period of his life, too, he seems to have suffered for his Jewish faith at the

hands of his young contemporaries possibly this may account for the episode
;

recorded, of his running away from school and sailing to Dublin. Here,
with only a few shillings in his pocket, he was accidentally accosted by the
Right Hon. R. Keatinge, Judge of the Prerogative Court of Ireland, who,
having discovered him to be a first cousin of his wife, entertained him, and
sent him back to Liverpool.
The indications were by now sufficient to encourage him to a mathe- 1831
matical career. After reading for a short time with the Rev. Dr Richard
Wilson, sometime Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, afterwards Head-
master of St Peter's Collegiate School, Eaton Square, London, Sylvester was
entered* at St John's College on 7 July, as a Sizar, commencing residence on
6 October 1831, when just over seventeen, his tutor being Mr Gwatkin.
He resided continuously till the end of the Michaelmas Term, 1833, though
he seems to have been seriously ill in June of this year. For two years from
the beginning of 1834 his name does not appear as a member of the College,
and apparently he was at home on account of illness. In January 1836 he
was readmitted, this time as a Pensioner, and resided during the Lent and
Michaelmas Terms, being also incapacitated in the intervening term. In
January 1837 he underwent his final University examination, the Mathe-
matical Tripos, and was placed second on the list. The first six names of
that year were Griffin, St John's ; Sylvester, St John's; Brumell, St John's;
Green, Gonville and Caius ; Gregory, Trinity, and Ellis, Trinity. Of these,
George Green, bom at Sneinton, near Nottingham, in 1793, was already the
author of the famous paper, " An essay on the application of Mathematical
Analysis to the theories of Electricity and Magnetism," which was published
at Nottingham, by subscription, in 1828. He died in 1841, more than fifty

years before Sylvester.

Of the general impression which Sylvester produced upon his con-
temporaries at Cambridge, it is difficult to judge. It is recorded that
he attended the lectures of J. Gumming, Professor of Chemistry in the
* The Eagle, the College Magazine, «x (1897), p. 603. A list of Sylvegter's scientific dis-
tinctions is given in this place (p. 600).