;

xxii Biographical Notice

23 May 1829 {Bulletin de Firmsac, xi, 1829, p. 419 ; Mimoires par divers
Savans, Vl, 1835, pp. 273 —318), or in what way he learnt of the theorem, there
seems to be no record. It is not referred to in the Report on Analysis by
George Peacock, Cambridge British Association Report, 1833, pp. 185 352, —
which deals at length with Fourier's method. Sylvester records (ii 655 6) —
that Sturm told him that the theorem originated in the theory of compound
pendulums, but he makes no reference to Sturm's recognition of the applica-
tion of his principles to certain differential equations of the second order.
Another aspect of Sylvester's time at Cambridge must be referred to.
At and indeed until 1871, it was necessary, in order to obtain the
this time,
Cambridge degree, to subscribe to the Articles of the Church of England
one of the attempts, in 1834, to remove the restriction, is recorded in the Life
of Adam Sedgwick, already referred to (i 418 ; Sedgwick writes a letter to
the Times, 8 April 1834). Sylvester was, in his own subsequent bitter
phrase (ill 81), one of the first holding "the faith in which the Founder of
Christianity was educated " to compete for high honours in the Mathematical
Tripos ; not only could he not obtain a degree, but he was excluded from the
examination for Dr Smith's mathematical prizes, which, founded in 1769, was
usually taken by those who had been most successful in the Mathematical
Tripos. Most probably, too, had the
been otherwise, he would have been
facts

shortly elected to a Fellowship at St John's College. To obtain a degree he

removed to Trinity College, Dublin, from which, it appears, he received in
turn the B.A. and the M.A. (1841). He finally received the B.A. degree
at Cambridge, 29 February 1872, the M.A. (honoris caiisa) following 25 May
of the same year.
1838 In the year succeeding his Tripos examination at Cambridge, he was
is now) University
elected to the Professorship of Natural Philosophy at (what
College, London, became a colleague of Professor De Morgan. The
and so
list of the supporters of his candidature includes the names of Dr Olinthus

Gregory, who had examined him in Algebra when a schoolboy of eleven, of

Dr Richard Wilson, who had taught him before his entrance at St John's
College, of the Senior Moderator and Senior Examiner in his Tripos examina-
tion, of Philip Kelland, of Queens' College, Senior Wrangler in 1834, after-
wards Professor at Edinburgh, and of J. W. Colenso, afterwards Bishop of
Natal the two last had been private tutors of Sylvester at some portions of
;

his career at Cambridge. He held the post of Professor of Natural Philosophy

for a few years only; Professor G. B. Halsted (Science, 11 April 1897) makes
a statement suggesting that the examination papers set by him during his
tenure of the office are of a nature to indicate that he did not find his subject
congenial. During these years he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
(25 April 1839), at the early age of twenty-five. About this time also an oil-
painting of him was made by Patten, of the Royal Scottish Academy, from
the recorded description of which it appears that he had dark curly hair and