Stewart, MATTHEW

Stewart, MATTHEW, was born in 1717 at Rothesay in Bute. He studied first at the university of Glasgow, where he was a favourite pupil of Robert Simson, and in 1742-43, when he was a student of divinity in the university of Edinburgh, attended Maclaurin's lectures on fluxions. For a short period he was minister of Roseneath, and in 1747 was elected Maclaurin's successor. He had in the previous year published his General Theorems of considerable use in the higher parts of Mathematics. In 1761 he published Traets Physical and Mathematical, and in 1763 his Propositiones Geometricæ more veterum demonstratæ. In 1772 he ceased to lecture in the university, and he died on 23d January 1785. The lifelong friendship which existed between him and Simson was unusually cordial, and it is highly probable that the bent of Stewart's mind towards the ancient geometry and his comparative indifference to the modern analysis were due to the example of his master. A biographical account of Stewart by Professor John Playfair will be found in the first vol. of the Transactions of the Roy. Soc. of Edinburgh (1788).