2nd s. N<» 91., Sept. 26. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



243 



with reference to 1" S. i. 401. 461. There is often 

 set down in catalogues a history of the trigono- 

 metrical canon, by Frobesius, who certainly wrote 

 learnedly on the ancient history of mathematics. 

 It is nothing but this thesis, which is not historical 

 at all. Frobesius was the professor before whom 

 the disputation was held. 



15. Phmnomenon Singula7-e, seu Mercurius in 

 Sola, cum Dip;ressione de Cuusis, cur Dionysius 

 Abbas minus justo a Naticitate Christi Domini nu- 

 merare docuerit : de capite et anni Ecclesiastici, 

 by J. Kepler, Leipsic, 1G09, 4to. (pp. 38., and one 

 separate plate headed " demonstratio ocularis"). 

 This tract is very rare. Drinkwater-Bethune 

 (^Life of Kepler, p. 18.) does not mention it : nor 

 is it in his list of works. Lalande describes it, 

 from Weidler. Drinkwater-Bethune only men- 

 tions the mistake of supposing a spot on the sun 

 to be Mercury, made by Kepler in his Paralijw- 

 mena, which he afterwards retracted when the 

 spots on the sun were discovered by the telescope. 

 But he does not know tliat when Maestlinus and 

 others questioned the possibility of seeing Mer- 

 cury on the sun, Kepler wrote this tract in rein- 

 forcement of his opinion. 



16.-4 Treatise of the System of the World, by 

 Sir Isaac Newton, translated into English : Lon- 

 don, printed for F. Fayram, at South Entrance 

 under the Royal Exchange, 1728, 8vo. By pos- 

 sibility some explanation of this work may yet be 

 detected. It is said to be the popular view of his 

 system which Newton at first intended should be 

 the third book of his Principia. Immediately 

 after his death, it was published as above, no one 

 knows how, or why, or by whom. A few months 

 afterwards, according to Rigaud (^Hist. Essay on 

 the Principia, p. 78.), th.e original Latin was pub- 

 lished. I cannot find that Sir David Brewster 

 mentions it, nor the writer in the Biographia 

 Britaiinica. There is no copy of it in the Royal 

 Society's Catalogue. Watt had not seen it : he 

 gives the title as The System of the World in a 

 Popular Way : which some have copied wlio ought 

 to have gone to higher sources. It is open to in- 

 quiry whether it be really Newton's original draft, 

 or that draft altered by the editor, or an entire 

 forgery made by popularising some of the third 

 book of the Principia. That it should be published 

 just after Newton's death, in so private a way, is 

 suspicious. It does not even refer to Newton's 

 death, which an accredited editor must have done. 

 The very first page makes Newton attribute the 

 doctrine of the earth's motion to Phito, Anaxi- 

 mander, and Numa Pompilius. It is strange that 

 these assertions should never have raised a doubt 

 of the genuineness of this work. 



17. Geographia Generalis, by Bernhard Vare- 

 nius, edited by Isaac Newton, Cambridge, 1672, 

 8vo. This was twice reprinted at Cambridge. 

 It is well known, but nobody ever seems to have 



looked into it to see why Newton should have 

 edited it. It is very strong upon the motion of 

 the earth, a doctrine by no means universally re- 

 ceived, even in the Universities, in 1672. Perhaps 

 Newton, with an eye to the future, wanted to 

 make his Cambridge contemporaries say A before 

 he asked them to say B. It is what we should now 

 call physical, astronomical, and geometrical geo- 

 graphy, as opposed to political geography, of which 

 there is none. Newton's general approbation of 

 its doctrines makes it worth more study from his 

 commentators than it has received. Not that 

 Newton appears to have looked very closely into 

 it : he has let pass some gross mistakes on the 

 English mile. A. De Mobgan. 



(To he continued.^ 



APPIAN UPON SPARTAN PRISONERS OF WAR. 



It is stated incidentally by Appian, in his Ito- 

 man History, that when the Lacedasmonians, under 

 the pressure of circumstances, repealed the dis- 

 qualifications of the prisoners taken at Pylos, and 

 restored them to their rights, they said /coi/taor0wv 

 ot vofj-oi rr)fj.epou, that is, " let the laws sleep today ; " 

 the word r^fi/xepov being cited in the Doric form, 

 viii. 112. 



This statement represents the disqualification 

 of the captives at Pylos as having been originally 

 created by the permanent law of the country, with 

 regard to prisoners of war who returned from 

 captivity ; and as having been at some subsequent 

 time removed by a special legislative interference 

 in their favour. It is therefore inconsistent with 

 the account of Thucydides, who says that these 

 prisoners, on their return to Sparta, re-entered 

 upon their full rights of citizens, and that some of 

 them had been appointed to official positions ; but 

 that the Lacedsemonians, mistrusting their fidelity, 

 subjected them to a special disqualification from 

 all public offices, and from buying and selling. 

 He adds, that after a time this disqualification 

 was removed, and that they were restored to their 

 full rights. According to Thucydides the law of 

 the country left these prisoners in the full posses- 

 sion of their rights, and they were disqualified by a 

 privilegium. According to Appian the law of the 

 country deprived them of their rights, and their 

 disqualification was removed by a privilegium. 

 (See Thuc. v. 34.; Grote, Hist, of Or., vol. vii. 

 p. 30.) 



In this conflict of testimony, the account of 

 Thucydides may unhesitatingly be preferred. The 

 anecdote of Appian is not however altogether in- 

 accurate : he has indeed erred in referring it to 

 the prisoners of Pylos ; but it is correct if applied 

 to another period. 



At the time of the battle of Leuctra, Spartan 

 citizens who allowed themselves to be taken alive 



