scholar in England." Barrow was Vice-Chancellor of the University
when he died in 1677, during a visit to London on the business of
his college.

The sermons here given were first published in 1678, in a volume
entitled "Several Sermons against Evil-speaking." That volume
contained ten sermons, of which the publisher said that "the two
last, against pragmaticalness and meddling in the affairs of others,
do not so properly belong to this subject." The sermons here given
follow continuously, beginning with the second in the series. The
text of the first sermon was "If any man offend not in word, he is a
perfect man." The texts to the last three were: "Speak not evil
one of another, brethren;" "Judge not;" and "That ye study to be
quiet, and to do your own business."

There were also published in 1678, the year after Barrow's death, a
sermon preached by him on the Good Friday before he died, a volume
of "Twelve Sermons preached upon several Occasions," and the second
edition of a sermon on the "Duty and Reward of Bounty to the Poor."
Barrow's works were collected by Archbishop Tillotson, and
published, in four folio volumes, in the years 1683-1687. There
were other editions in three folios in 1716, in 1722, and in 1741.
Dr. Dibdin said of Barrow that he "had the clearest head with which
mathematics ever endowed an individual, and one of the purest and
most unsophisticated hearts that ever beat in the human breast." In
these sermons against Evil Speaking he distinguishes as clearly as
Shakespeare does between the playfulness of kindly mirth that draws
men nearer to each other and the words that make division. No man
was more free than Isaac Barrow from the spirit of unkindness. The
man speaks in these sermons. Yet he could hold his own in wit with