at Trinity College, filling the post until his appointment to the chair of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics at University College, London, in August, 1871, a position which he held until his death. Professor Clifford was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June, 1874. He took prizes and honors wherever he went, which was the more remarkable, as his mind could not tolerate the usual school restraints, and he could not be induced to give much attention to the regular subjects of examination. He had consumption, which greatly impaired his working power in the latter portion of his life; and he died on the island of Madeira, where he had gone with his wife and two children to get the benefit of its milder climate.
Clifford was a genius, and brilliant from his boyhood. He early developed rare mathematical talent, and published the "Analogues of Pascal's Theorem" in the "Quarterly Journal of Mathematics" at the age of eighteen. His mind was at home in all highest mathematical questions, to which he made many profound and original contributions. Professor Sylvester remarked, "All that Professor Clifford adds is the very pith and marrow of the matter." Just before his death he published a little mathematical work, "The Elements of Dynamic," in which his faculty for the subject is fully displayed. It will probably not take high rank as a university text-book, for which it was intended, but is admired by mathematicians for the elegance, freshness, and originality displayed in the treatment of mathematical problems.
Clifford had no special taste for the acquisition of languages, but was interested in their mechanism, and took interest in short-hand, phonography, and telegraphic alphabets. Later in life, however, he mastered modern Greek and Spanish, and dabbled in Arabic and Sanskrit, which, in addition to his earlier Greek and Latin, French and German, landed him pretty heavily in the direction of vocabularies.
He was an early and devoted student of classics, and held extreme High-Church notions when he went to Cambridge. In his knowledge of the "Fathers" he is said to have surpassed the bishops, and his theological acquirements were of great use to him in his polemical and critical discussions. Not satisfied in addressing that very small portion of the public that understands mathematics, versatile in his powers, and of a restless temperament, he was powerfully attracted to those great subjects of scientific and speculative inquiry that have lately become so prominent in the world of thought. Into this field he entered vigorously, and made a strong impression upon the reading public by various able and elaborate articles which appeared in the "Fortnightly" and "Contemporary" Reviews, and in "The Nineteenth Century." He was an extreme and uncompromising rationalist, and although personally greatly liked on account of his gentleness and affability, he made many enemies by the relentless severity of his writing on topics that are conventionally handled with delicacy and caution. He discussed a variety of philosophical subjects, always in a striking and attractive
