... his brilliant intellect soon asserted itself. Records of 1875 state that he was first in the top form with prizes in Mathematics, French, Drawing, Form Prize, and Parents' Prize. During the four years, 1874-78, he was captain of the school. From the Rev W C Sparrow, one of the most successful Headmasters of the school, he received instruction in Hebrew as well as in Greek and Latin.

Besant's method was rather odd but very effective with the right sort of man. At the cost of immense labour he had written out with his own hand, a set of "bookwork and rider" papers covering the whole range of the examination. The pupil, on each of his three weekly visits, found one of these papers awaiting him in the outside room, and proceeded to answer it as well as he could on the backs of old examination scripts. If he had not brought a pen of his own, he had to search among a lot of ancient quills until he could find one that was not hopelessly spoiled. Presently, the student would be politely summoned to an inner parlour, where his last exercise would be returned to him corrected and annotated, and if he had failed to answer any question he would be either shown a solution or given a hint how to proceed. Of course, it was not every pupil that was taken separately like this; some of them were taken in small batches (not exceeding five or six), but the general method was the same. It should be added that once every week each pupil took away with him a printed problem paper to be done at leisure in his own rooms. The results were marked, and the list was available for inspection.

I first saw the late G B Mathews on June 4, 1884, at the Queen's Hotel, Chester, when the staff of the newly founded University College of North Wales was appointed. He was chosen for the Chair of Mathematics, and almost from that time we were linked together in friendship as well as in our offices as teachers of intimately related subjects in the same institution. I well remember his youthful and striking yet attractive appearance. He was the senior wrangler of the previous year, and came full of eager enthusiasm for the teaching of mathematics and for original mathematical work, and for ten years laboured hard in the hope of founding something like a school of mathematical study in North Wales. But alas! these hopes were dashed. Perhaps he was a little impatient, and I certainly did my best to counsel him to wait, and to find out the effect of the new Welsh university on the studies of the place, but without effect.

Ever since the mid-eighties Mathews was a frequent contributor to 'Nature' on mathematical topics. His articles and reviews, most of which appeared over the initials "G. B. M." were always written in a careful and scholarly style; they contained his considered opinion on the book or point concerned. His keen yet kindly criticism was undoubtedly of the greatest service to the many writers whose work passed through his hands. In conversation with the present writer he once expressed the opinion that some of his best work had appeared in 'Nature' reviews.

Mathews was an accomplished classical scholar; and besides Latin and Greek he was proficient in Hebrew, Sanskrit and Arabic. He also possessed great musical knowledge and skill. His versatility led a colleague at Bangor to assert that Mathews could equally well fill four or more chairs at the college.

Mathews had a knowledge of Latin and Greek as minute and accurate as that generally possessed by professional classical scholars. He wrote pure and elegant Latin. I remember his amusing himself by turning into Latin prose an original philosophical dissertation which happened to come into his hands and arrested his attention. I remember also some Latin verses which he published anonymously and which were much praised by a very eminent scholar.

He wrote also charming English essays in the style of Charles Lamb, of whom he was a great admirer. These I fear are lost, but one of them, "On a cock-loft," was a perfect gem, a charming piece of the most natural and simple prose, somewhat after the manner exemplified more recently by Kenneth Grahame in his "Golden Days." He gave much time to Arabic in later years, and it is to be hoped that his translations of Arabic poetry will ultimately be published. I have seen some of them, which certainly seemed very remarkable.

Mathews' knowledge of music, again, was fully as advanced as that of most professional musicians. His copies of Gauss and Bach were placed together on the same shelf, and he considered some of Sir Edward Elgar's compositions to be as fine as the work of Beethoven and Handel.

His mind was quick and his tongue sharp, and often his repartees in discussion were appropriate and caustic in a high degree. I remember his crushing reply to a person not remarkable for quickness of perception who raised a discussion on mass and weight, and advanced the statement that mass and density meant the same thing. "Not at all," said Mathews, "there is all the difference in the world between a massive intellect and a dense one!" ...

His life was a rather solitary one. He smoked and worked and read in his rooms when he would have been better in the open air; but he was not a mere recluse. He much enjoyed talking over current events with his friends. I remember that when he stayed with me in Strathspey in 1913 he was eloquent in appreciation of the character of Lord Kitchener, and talked with much vigour and information of all Kitchener's work for Egypt. Mathews was exceedingly sensitive, and almost morbidly afraid of appearing to put himself forward in any way, so that he hardly received the recognition which was his due.

We may venture to assert that the intellectual state of a country may be estimated fairly well by its attitude towards mathematics and its progress therein. In this respect England is much inferior to other and smaller nations. For instance, in England many private libraries have been either given to the nation or placed at the disposal of genuine students: very few of these are wholly or mainly mathematical. Contrast with this the Mittag-Leffler endowment .... The founders expressly emphasised the supreme importance of pure mathematics from a national point of view. Again, no one can dispute the practical efficiency of the American nation; compare their treatment of mathematical professors with ours. An American university teacher may be a specialist devoted to the most abstract and "unpractical" parts of his science; he is left perfectly free to pursue his researches; he is provided with a sufficient staff of assistants; the university library contains an ample store of mathematical books, and all other necessary equipment is supplied. Every seventh year the professor is relieved of his official duties; and the use which he generally makes of his respite may be illustrated by the "History of the Theory of Numbers" (now in course of publication), by Prof L E Dickson. His special subject is the highly abstract one of group-theory: but he spent his sabbatical year in ransacking the libraries of Europe, as well as of the United States, for works on the higher arithmetic. The result is an extraordinary display of laborious and accurate research: the first volume alone contains summaries, almost all of them based upon the author's personal examination, of thousands of papers. The value of the work, when complete, can scarcely be overestimated.