THE LANCASHIRE GEOMETERS AND THEIB WRITINGS. 



125 



The late Professor Davies directed attention to these cir- 

 cumstances in Notes and Queries, No. 31, and in No. 34 of 

 the same work I have attempted to trace the " Origin and 

 Progress of the Study of Geometry in Lancashire" so far as 

 my means of information would then permit; nor am I without 

 a hope that, in the paper alluded to, I have succeeded in 

 assigning some of the true causes of this " remarkable pheno- 

 menon," and in furnishing correct answers to Mr, Harvey's 

 interesting inquiries. 



Mr. Halliwell's Collection of Letters on the Progress of 

 Science in England sufRcientlj proves that the study of geo- 

 metry was at a very low ebb in England previously to the 

 commencement of the eighteenth century. Dr. John Dee, the 

 celebrated author of the Preliminary Discourse to Billingsley's 

 Euclid, was indeed Warden of the College at Manchester, 

 (a.d. 1595,) but his residence here could effect little in favour 

 of pure Geometry. His versatile talents, however, may have 

 given an impulse to the study of Natural Philosophy and 

 Astronomy, for, in a.d. 1633—1641, we find Horrocks and 

 Crabtree, both natives of Lancashire, the former of Toxteth, 

 near Liverpool, and the latter of Broughton, near Manchester, 

 especially distinguished in Theoretical and Practical Astro- 

 nomy. Their labours in these subjects have recently been 

 described at considerable length by Mr. Grant, F.R.A.S., in 

 his able History of Physical Jstronomy, but it does not appear 

 that they ever paid any special attention to the ancient geo- 

 metrical analysis. Indeed, had such been the case, their early 

 death (a.d. 1641) would have prevented the exertion of any 

 considerable influence in its favour, for it necessarily requires 

 a long and distinguished career for individuals to succeed in 

 reviving a taste for the cultivation of a branch of science so 

 long neglected. 



Of Christopher Townley, of Townley, near Burnley, we know 

 little except that he was the transcriber of the Townley MSS., 

 so well known to every antiquary. The friend of Edward 

 Sherborne, the translator of Manilius's Treatise on Astronomy, 



