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Barrow , his uncle had been ejected, and he consequently went as a pensioner to Trinity. His father, who was at Oxford with the king when Barrow went to Cambridge, lost all in the royal cause. Barrow, therefore, would have been obliged to leave college for want of funds, had it not been for the kindness of the great Henry Hammond, who, either personally or by gatherings which he made from the faithful to support young men at the universities ‘as a seed-plot of the ministry,’ enabled him to pay the necessary expenses. Barrow showed his gratitude to Hammond by writing his epitaph. In 1647 Barrow was elected scholar of Trinity, though he refused to subscribe the covenant; and, in spite of his royalist opinions, he contrived to win the favour of the college authorities. ‘Thou art a good lad,’ said the puritan master, Dr. Hill, to him, patting him on the head; ‘'tis pitty thou art a royalist.’ Barrow did subscribe the ‘engagement,’ but afterwards applied to the commissioners, and ‘prevailed to have his name razed out of the list.’ He took his B.A. degree in 1648, and in 1649 was elected fellow of Trinity, his friend and contemporary, Mr. Ray, the great botanist, being elected at the same time. He had studied physic, and at one time thought of entering the medical profession; but on reconsideration ‘he thought that profession not well consistent with the oath he had taken when admitted fellow.’ In 1652 he took his M.A. degree, and in the following year was incorporated in the same degree at Oxford. In 1654 the professor of Greek at Cambridge, Dr. Dupont, an eminent man in his day, and, in spite of his position, a royalist, resigned his chair, and was most anxious that his old pupil, Barrow, should succeed him; and Barrow, we are told, ‘justified the character given of him by an excellent performance of his probation exercise, but not having interest enough to secure the election, Mr. Ralph Widdrington was chosen.’ It is said that he failed through being suspected of Arminianism, and that Widdrington, who was nearly related to men in power, gained the election by favouritism. But it must be remembered that Barrow was at this time only twenty-four years of age—a very young man to be placed in such a post—and that, great as his classical reputation was, he was still more highly thought of as a mathematician. Moreover, he was already laying the foundation of his after-eminence as a divine. In fact, according to one account, his mathematical studies all had reference to this; for ‘finding that to be a good theologian he must know chronology, that chronology implies astronomy, and astronomy mathematics, he applied himself to the latter science with distinguished success.’

Barrow was, however, clearly out of sympathy with the dominant party at Cambridge. When he delivered a fifth of November oration, in which ‘he praised the former times at the expense of the present,’ his brother fellows were so disgusted that they moved for his expulsion, and he was only saved by the intervention of his old friend the master, who screened him, saying, ‘Barrow is a better man than any of us.’ This want of sympathy with his surroundings determined him to travel; but his means were so straitened that he was obliged to sell his books in order to do so. He set forth in 1655, and first visited Paris, where he found his father in attendance upon the English court, and ‘out of his small stock made him a seasonable present.’ Thence he proceeded to Italy, visiting, among other places, Florence, where ‘he read many books in the great duke's library, and ten thousand of his medals.’ He was helped with means to continue his travels by Mr. James Stock, a London merchant whom he met at Florence, and to whom he afterwards dedicated his ‘Euclid's Data.’ On his voyage from Leghorn to Smyrna an incident occurred which showed that he had not altogether lost his fighting propensities. The vessel was attacked by an Algerine pirate; Barrow remained on deck, kept his post at the gun to which he was appointed, and fought most bravely, until the pirate, who had expected no resistance, sheered off. Barrow has described the conflict in Latin, both in prose and verse. At Smyrna he was kindly received by the English consul, Mr. Bratton, on whose death he wrote a Latin elegy. His reception by the English ambassador at Constantinople, Sir Thomas Bendish, was equally cordial; and he also began there an intimate friendship with Sir Jonathan Dawes. He spent his time at Constantinople in reading the works of St. Chrysostom, whom he preferred to any of the fathers. He resided more than a year in Turkey, and then gradually made his way home, taking on his road Venice, Germany, and Holland. He arrived in England in 1659, and at once received holy orders from Bishop Brownrigg.

Upon the Restoration his fortunes brightened. Widdrington resigned the Greek professorship, and this time there was no difficulty about electing Barrow to the chair. He began lecturing upon Aristotle's Rhetoric; but he is said to have been not very successful as a Greek lecturer. On the death of Mr. Rooke he was chosen professor of geometry at Gresham College, through the recommendation of Dr. Williams. Besides