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have already had, you have it in your power to do much more for yourself than can be done by any recommendation from others. Every master is pleased with the progress of his students, provided it be not accompanied with conceit or presumption. Continue, therefore, your industry, and do justice to your talents, and you will find friends ready to serve you. I have no advice to give you with respect to your studies, excepting this, that you should always make yourself completely master of the elements or first steps of your processes or demonstrations, and never pass over any important step till you fully comprehend it. You know well that nothing can be done in Geometry if you do not carry light, evidence, and precision, along with you; and that, though your progress should even be slow in this sure path, you will, in fact, advance much faster than when you are obliged to turn back and to resume your former labours. I need not suggest to you, for I daresay it is a part of your pratique, to attempt demonstrations of your own in a different manner. But I commit all these things to your prudence and to the instructions you receive.

"You have it much in your own power, Thomas, to recommend yourself to your masters by receiving instruction from them patiently and pleasantly; and particularly by anticipating what you know will be agreeable to them in the course of your studies, and showing a good example to others. You have something to do also with your fellow-students. I am sure you will discover on all occasions polite, obliging dispositions to them, and do them any favour in your power; not by doing their work for them, for that is a hurt to them, and highly improper on your part, but by giving them advice and aid in the doing their own work. But, above all, Thomas, be sure to discover as little as possible your superiority, or more successful progress, by disgusting and offensive airs of pride or of contempt. Upon all these things I have nothing to fear from what I know and what I hope.

My dear young friend, you are now at a distance from your affectionate and anxious mother and your other friends, whom I am sure you will ever gratefully remember; and you

must mix with many young persons who have been brought up and instructed very differently from you; and you must be exposed to many temptations of various kinds at present and as you advance in life. I therefore most solemnly advise you to adhere strictly to the good instructions you have received, and the good principles of religion in which you have been brought up. I do not mean that you are to show yourself a stiff and sour Presbyterian. Religion is a matter betwixt God and your own conscience, and you may do your duty completely both to God and man either as a Presbyterian or an Episcopalian. What I mean is, that if, when you are still better qualified to determine, you prefer the one to the other, adhere to it, but not rigidly, as the difference is in form not in substance. You will, no doubt, meet with many young persons who think and talk lightly, perhaps irreverently, on these subjects. You need not attempt to correct or reform them unless the occasion be very favourable; but, whatever they do, preserve your innocence and integrity; you will find them never-failing sources of comfort and happiness when you most require them. There are many gross vices and faults, which, from their frequency, and the disguises they put on, pass for trivial and common, and are often thought qualifications, which I most earnestly wish you to avoid. I have in view, chiefly at present, swearing, taking the name of God in vain, and impure and improper discourse. These, I trust, you will ever hold in abhorrence. Nothing is more unsuitable to a gentleman-I speak not of its criminality-than vulgar swearing. No well-bred gentleman swears,-at least it is a blemish on any character, and puts the gentleman on a level with the greatest blackguard. Thomas, you are to be a soldier and a man of honour, and you must preserve that character uniformly. You will best preserve it by avoiding causes of offence, and by taking a cautious part in the offences and differences among your companions and friends. This is essentially necessary. Because, on proper occasion, there must be no doubt of your honour, and there must be regard to your character. Well-disposed, well-bred men, and men of accommodating, obliging dispositions, seldom or never have any occasion

for their prudence or resolution. These are better discovered
in very different situations. My dear Thomas, I have very
little more to say to you at present, but shall at all times,
while I live, be ready to give you my best advice whenever
you wish for it. I have only to recommend to you to remem-
ber at all times your beloved mother and grandmother. I
know you cannot forget them. But let them be present with
you. Think of the pleasure you give them when you do well,
and think of the tears and misery you would cause them if
you were to do otherwise. I am sure your kind, affectionate
heart could not bear to think of a suffering, miserable mother.
God bless you, and preserve you from all evil. Fear God;
honour your parents. Your days shall be long and your end
happy. . . . .—I ever am, my dear Thomas, your faithful
friend and servant,
"GEO. JARDINE."

When Drummond returned to Woolwich, in August, he entered the senior department, and had new and pleasant rooms, as well as pleasant comrades. He now became very friendly, even intimate, with Mr. Christie, his old master in the fifth academy. "I conjecture," he says, writing in September, “that I am much indebted to Mr Christie for Colonel Mudge's good opinion of me." By October there was another examination, and he gained another step of advancement. "I have now a piece of good news to tell you," he writes to his grandmother,* "at which you will heartily rejoice. I have got into the third academy. I have a good friend in Colonel Mudge; and now that he has got hold of me, he will probably never let me go till he has landed me safely with a commission in the Engineers." The same day he wrote to Mr Aitchison, whose good services he always gratefully remembered.

On the 14th November 1813, he writes that there is
Letter to Mrs Somers, Oct. 3, 1813.

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to be an examination in about a fortnight, and that he will be very busy till then. This is the last of the Woolwich letters that has been preserved; there is a gap in the correspondence; and the next letter is dated from Plymouth, in February 1817. We know, however, the result of the examination for which he was preparing; he again took a step, and entered the second academy. "By Christmas of the year in which he joined," says General Larcom, "he entered the second academy. Here it perhaps was fortunate, that instead of being thus early launched into military life, a pause occurred, during the short peace from the summer of 1814 till the escape of Napoleon from Elba; after which, in July 1815, he left Woolwich for the corps of Royal Engineers." Joining the academy in 1813, he became in 1815 a member of the corps, notwithstanding a considerable interval, during which the course of promotion was arrested. Having advanced to the second academy within ten months, he entered the first soon after, and having stepped up all the rounds of the ladder in about a year, a progress which many took several years to make, he stood waiting and fully prepared for a

commission.

"Much of this success," says General Larcom, "was doubtless to be attributed to the admirable preliminary education he had received, but much also to a character of determined perseverance, and to the vigorous and well-regulated mind he brought to bear on all subjects. To this it was probably due that he never became exclusively a mathematician, but advanced equally in all the various branches of study, being at that time, as he continued through life, distinguished for general intelligence, and for aptitude to seize on information

of every kind. kind. His mathematical character at Woolwich has been thus well and justly sketched by his friend and master, Professor Barlow. Mr Drummond, by his amiable disposition, soon gained the esteem of the masters under whom he was instructed; with the mathematical masters in particular, his reputation stood very high, not so much for the rapidity of his conception, as for his steady perseverance, and for the original and independent views he took of the different subjects which were placed before him. There were among his fellow-students some who comprehended an investigation more quickly than Drummond, but there was none who ultimately understood all the bearings of it so well. While a cadet in a junior academy, not being satisfied with a rather difficult demonstration in the conic sections, he supplied one himself on an entirely original principle, which at the time was published in Leybourn's Mathematical Repository, and was subsequently taken to replace that given in Dr Hutton's Course of Mathematics, to which he had objected. This apparently trifling event gave an increased stimulus to his exertions, and may perhaps be considered the foundation-stone of his future scientific fame. After leaving the academy, he still continued his intercourse with his mathematical masters, with whom he formed a friendship which only terminated in his much-lamented death.""

"This remarkable combination of good qualities," continues the General, "was early appreciated by the admirable discernment of the Lieutenant-Governor, General Mudge, whose judicious encouragement it gained." We saw a confirmation of this in the letter of Professor Jardine: "Colonel Millar informed me, that Colonel Mudge said to him, that you were just such a student as he wished, and that if you continued

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