July 7. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



3 



Arithmetical Books is the Panarithmologia (1693) 

 of William Leybourn. Of this book 1 find that 

 Granger (no great authority on such a point) says 

 it was formed on a plan of his own, which was 

 adopted by Bareme in France. If, as I suspect, 

 the author of Playford's Vade Meeum be John 

 Playford the printer, who printed in and about 

 1679, then it remains to be settled whether Play- 

 ford or Leybourn has the priority. 



Rapid Calculation. — 



" A Method to Multiply or Divide ... so expeditely 

 that any Fifty Figures may either be Multiplied or Di- 

 vided by any Fifty Figures, all in one Line, in Five 

 Minutes Time . . . Invented by Quin Mackenzie-Quin, 

 Esq. at the Eighth Year of his Age . . . London, Printed 

 for the Author . . . muccl. By Authority of Parliament. 

 Folio." 



If the boy wrote his own preface and descrip- 

 tions, he tells us that necessitous virtue gained 

 him a knowledge of numbers from indulgent 

 nature. He tells the king, in the dedi- 

 cation, that his firstlings in arithmetic are 

 raised to so august a patrociny as the royal 

 name ! He quotes Horace, Florus, Cicero, 

 Proclus, &c. ; and also hundreds of names 

 of Members of Parliament as subscribers. 

 Probably the author was a lad of rapid 

 calculating power, whose friends thought it 

 would be a good speculation to tell the 

 public that any one who used the boy's 

 method could do as well. In the margin 

 is the way to multiply 432 by 21. An in- 

 stance of fifty figures by fifty figures takes 

 two large folio pages, and could be done in 

 no five minutes except those of the people 

 who assure you they will not detain you 

 longer. Some of your readers may have 

 the means of giving some account of 

 this curious production. I suppose that " by 

 authority of Parliament " means " entered at 

 Stationers' Hall." A. De Mokgan. 



432 

 21 



10 



9072 



Coleridge's marginalia on raleiqh's " history 

 OF the world." 



I possess a copy of Sir Walter Raleigh's History 

 of the World, 1st edit., 1614, upon the margins of 

 which are several MS. notes in a handwriting 

 resembling Coleridge's, but without his initials. 

 That they were written by him is rendered almost 

 certain, from the following considerations : that 

 he was familiar with the book (a fact which we 

 learn from his marginalia on Stillingfleet's Ori- 

 gines SacrcE, published in a periodical called 

 Excelsior, No. IV.) ; that some at least of the 

 opinions expressed in the margin of the History 

 of the World are coincident with those of Cole- 

 ridge ; and that the style of their composition is 

 Coleridge's own. When it is considered how large 



No. 297.] 



an amount of the MSS. of the great poet- philoso- 

 pher are withheld from publication, his admirers 

 will I am sure feel grateful for any accession to 

 the small amount of his published prose writings. 

 I heartily wish my contribution were greater. 

 Preface, p. 10. : 



" But had the Duke of Parma, in the year 1588, joyned 

 the army which he commanded with that of Spaine, and 

 landed it on the south coast ; and had his majesty at the 

 same time declared himselfe against us in the north, it is 

 easie to divine what had become of the liberty of England ; 

 certainely we would then without murmur have [brought] 

 this union [a far greater praise] than it hath since coat 

 us." 



Coleridge : 



'•rorsan, bought — at a far greater price." 



Preface, p. 18. : 



" The living (saith hee [the preacher]) know that they 

 shall die, but the dead know nothing at all." 



Coleridge : 



" ? But of the dead?" 



This note may be considered suggpstive of the 

 opinion so often expressed by Coleridge, that — 



" The Jews believed generally in a future state, inde- 

 pendently of the Mosaic Law." — See Table Talk, 3rd edit. 

 (1851), p. 28. 



Preface, p. 24. : 



" He will disable God's power to make a world, -without, 

 matter to make it of. He will rather give mothes of the 

 aire a cause, cast the work on necessity or chance ; be- 

 stow the honour thereof on Nature ; make two powers, the 

 one to be the author of the matter, the other of ih^ forme; 

 and lastly, for want of a worke-man, have it eternall: 

 which latter opinion Aristotle, to make himself the author 

 of a new doctrine brought into the world : and his Secta- 

 tours have maintained it." 



Coleridge : 



" I do not think that Aristotle made the world eternal, 

 from the difficulty of aliquid a nihilo materiali ; but from 

 the idea of God as an eternal Act — actus ptcrissi7nus, and 

 eternity = Simultaneous possession of total Being — for, 

 strictly, God neither was nor will be, but always is. We 

 may, without absurdity or contradiction, combine the 

 faith of Aristotle and the Church, saying, God from all 

 eternity creates the world by and through the Aoyos." 



In the marginalia on Stillingfleet's Origines 

 SacrcB, above referred to, Coleridge says : 



" And where is the danger to religion, if we make pre- 

 servation a perpetual creation, and interpret the first 

 words of Genesis as we must do (if not Socinian) the 

 first words of St. John. From all eternity God created 

 the universe, and the earth became waste and void," &c. 



Whether this were the faith of Aristotle or not, it 

 was certainly that of Plato. Cf. Timaeus. 



The above are all the notes on the Preface. 

 The following are on the text of the History : 



Book I. p. 65. ch. v. § 5. : 



" Of the long lives of the Patriarchs ; and of some of late 

 memory." 



