162 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. X. Sept. 1. 'CO. 



years, during •\v='' time his Children were brought up & 

 kept by my Grandfather, who was the Bp.'s Brother, 

 Tho. Henshaw of Billingshurst in Sussex. At the Re- 

 storation he did many services to the Church of Chiches- 

 ter, in setling the affairs of it : was made Dean, thence 

 promoted to the See of Peterborough. 



" I have given you the whole Letter, that if the Ori- 

 ginal fail, you may have this true Copy of it. 



«Wh. Peterbor." (76jrf. 26. 371.) 



J. E. B. Mayor. 



St. John's College, Cambridge. 



MATHEMATICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

 (2"" S. ix. 339. 449.) 

 Professor De Morgan is no doubt correct both 

 as to the paging and the passage, and the abbre- 

 viation (Gem. for Geminus) must be ascribed to 

 me and not to Barocius. I am glad to have called 

 his attention to the marginal reference. 



London, fifteen -seventy four. Recorde, Robert, 'The 

 pathewaie to knowledge, containyng the first principles 

 of Geometrie, as thei male moste aptlj- bee applied vnto 

 practise, bothe for vse of instrumentes Geometricall, and 

 Astronomicall : and also for proiection of plattes in euery 

 kinde, and therefore muche necessarie ibr all sortes of 

 menne. 



Geometries verdicte. 

 All freshefine wittes by me are filed. 

 All grosse dull wittes wishe me exiled : 

 Though no mannes witte reject will I, 

 Yet as thei bee, I will them trie. 

 Quarto. " An Epistle to the Kinges M." (Edward VI) 

 which follows other prefatory matter is dated " At Lon- 

 don, the xxviij. dale of Jannuarie. M.D.LI." 



The work concludes with " Imprinted at Lon- 

 don, by Ihon Harrison. Anno Domini. 1574." 



My copy contains the two following memoranda: 

 " This Robert Recorde was the first English wri- 

 ter on Algebra — flourished about 1550" and 

 " The first Edition of this Work appeared in the 

 year 1551, and was the first on Geometry ever 

 printed in English. See Percy Anecdotes on 

 Science p. 113 ". On one of its fly-leaves is writ- 

 ten the name " Fraunces Englefeilde " in an an- 

 cient handwriting, and on the same page, and 

 apparently in the same hand and ink, are some 

 detached pieces of calculation, which seem to be 

 division by the old Italian process of " the galley," 

 or by that which Peacock called the "scratch" 

 method, with a verification in one case by multi- 

 plication. On the same page another entry in- 

 forms us that "John Sharman of Denton owe 

 This Book 1726." On the back of this leaf the 

 relations "Diameter 14|Cercumferentia 44 Area 

 cerculi 154 Superficies sphere 616 Gibbositas 

 spher 1437^" are written, apparently in the " En- 

 glefeilde " handwriting. My copy is in the same 

 parchment cover with 



London, fifteen-seventyone. Digges, Leonard [Gen- 

 tleman, lately finished by Thomas Digges his sonne. ] 

 'A Geometrical Practise, named Pantometria, diuided 



into three Bookes, Longimelra, Planimetra and Stereo- 

 metria, containing Rules manifolde for mensuration of all 

 lines, Superficies and Solides': with sundry straunge 

 conclusions both by instrument and without, and also by 

 Perspective glasses, to set forth the true description or 

 exact plat of an whole Region: framed by . . . Who 

 hathe also thereunto adioyned a Mathematical! treatise 

 of the fine regulare Platonicall bodies, and their Meta- 

 morphosis or transformation into fiue other equilater uni- 

 formesolidesGeometricall, of his owne inuention, hitherto 

 not mentioned of by any Geometricians. Imprinted at 

 London by Henrie Bynneman, Anno 1571.' Quarto. 



This work commences with " The Epistle " of 

 Thomas Digges to Sir Nicolas Bacon " Knight 

 Lord keper "&c., at the end of which (and on A. j.) 

 is the M.S. memorandum "Leonard Digges the 

 Father of Thomas was famous for his Mathe- 

 matical learning & died about 1574. The eldest 

 son of Thomas was also very learned : he was Sir 

 Dudley Digges, & was Master of the Rolls to Cha. 

 1. died about 1639." This, as well as the two cor- 

 responding memorandums in my copy of the Pathe- 

 waie, was probably made by the late Mr. W. C. 

 Ayton, a former possessor of the volume into 

 which both works are bound, or tacked together. 

 This binding must have taken place very long 

 ago, for on the outer fly leaf of the volume I find 

 some figures or references apparently in the En- 

 glefeilde handwriting ; and the name " Ann Skel- 

 ton " which, in an old hand, is written on the title 

 page of the Pathewaie is subscribed, on the back 

 of leaf H. iv. of !he Pantometria, to a brief and 

 sportive ode addressed to "John Chapman," and 

 in the handwriting of its subscriber. From the 

 ode itself I infer that it was written in the month 

 of February, and from a scrawl on the opposite 

 page (J) I conjecture that it was written in 1680. 

 On another page (the back of T. iv.) in another 

 hand " James Homer (?) de Shottisham in Comi- 

 tatu Nor .... (?) 1697 " has given a reference to 

 something " in Euclid's Elements of Geometry." 

 But the book, wliich seems to have been in the 

 possession of the Sharman's in 1726, had probably 

 been so for some time for the name " John Sher- 

 man of Dentoo " is written on the back of the leaf 

 B b. iv in an old hand, not unlike that of " Ann 

 Skelton." " The Preface to the Reader " which 

 follows " The Epistle " is by Thomas Digges. 



Some of the following works are rare. The 

 dates of those which are not so will be useful in 

 fixing the positions of the others. The "Re- 

 searches " of Mr. Jerrard have, I believe, long 

 been out of print. 



Londini, sixteen-fiftj^nine. Barrow, Is. ' Euclidis Ele- 

 mentorum libri xv. breviter demonstrati, opera Is. Bar- 

 row, Cantabrigiensis, Coll. Trin. Soc. Kaeap/aol ^v\rii 

 Ao7(C^s €c<7H' a'l f-o-Ot] jxaXiKaX itncTT ijjiiai. HIBROCLi. Lon- 

 dini, Excudebat R. Daniel, Impensis Guil. Nealand Bi- 

 liopola; Cantabrig. M.D.CLIX' Ocfaro (small). 339 + xiv 

 pages. 



My copy was formerly the property of the late 

 Professor T. S. Davies. It has the initials "L. 



