2°« S. No 94., Oct. 17. '57.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



301 



LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17. 1857. 



jUotriS. 



BOOK DUST. 



(^Concluded from p. 283.) 



38. The act offering a reward for the improve- 

 ment of means of finding the longitude was passed 

 in 1714 ; and straightway there was a deluge of 

 tracts. In a volume of these tracts an old pos- 

 sessor has put the following list, which, though 

 probably far from complete, may be of use to 

 collectors : 



" Harrison, 169G ; Howard, 1705, and Appendix, 1706 ; 

 Browne, Tliacker, Whiston and Ditton, Billingsley, Haw- 

 kins, Ward, Douglass, .Haldanby, Clarke, Hall, all in 

 1714; Gentleman, 1715; Pitot, 1716; Plank, 1720; 

 Whiston, Tourigin, 1721; Sailor, 1726; Whiston, 1738; 

 Blennerhasset, 1750; Locke, 1751; Jonchere, Hardy, 

 Maitland, without date." 



39. Methods, Propositions and Problems, for 

 finding the Latitude .... and the Longitude . . . 

 by Rob. Browne, London, 1714, 8vo. (pp. 20.). 

 Attached, one leaf (pp. 97, 98.) from some work 

 of Browne describing his improvements, with a 

 new page printed in continuation, unpaged, and 

 signed. Further attached, without title-page, 

 " The Case of Robert Browne, relating to his Dis- 

 covery of the Longitude at Sea by Celestial Ob- 

 servations" (pp. 8.), containing documents from 

 Oct. 17, 1729 ; and dated April, 1732. 



My copy of the first, the Methods, Sfc, has 

 written on the title-page, "This book was pre- 

 sented to the Royal Society by the Author, Oct. 

 17, 1728." The Royal Society minutes of that 

 date confirm the fact. The " Case," &c., contains 

 a curious attack upon Halley, and gives some of 

 the points of the Flamsteed quarrel, which it was 

 supposed had never been printed until Mr. Baily's 

 work appeared : as in the following extract : — 



" That since my writing this my Case, the Transactions 

 for October, November, and December, 1731, are presented 

 to my View, which I had not before, wherein is specify'd 

 the Doctor's [Halley], Judas-\ike, Dealings with me, and 

 an Harangue of ambiguous Pretences ; my Time will not 

 permit me to answer them effectually at present, which, 

 perhaps, I may hereafter ; I shall only now take Notice 

 of some Things as a Specimen of the Whole. The Doctor 

 in Page 190, informs us that, 



" ' Not long after Her late Majesty Q. Anne was pleas'd 

 " to bestow upon the Publick an Addition of the much 

 " greater and most valuable Part of Mr. Flamsteed's Ob- 

 " servations, by Help of which the great Sir Isaac Newton 

 " had formed his curious Theor}' of the Moon." 



" But I cannot understand what the Publick were the 

 better for this Addition ? True it is, that when the late 

 Q. Anne and Prince George gave upwards of lOOOZ. for 

 Composing, Correcting, and Printing a Catalogue of Stars 

 from Mr. Flamsteed'a Observations, they were delivered 

 to Sir Isaac seal'd up, and not to be open'd, but by Mr. 

 Flamsteed's Consent, for which I saw the Receipt of Sir 

 Isaac's in Mr. Flamsteed's Book, but contrary to that 

 Trust, when they had got the Money, they broke them 



open, corrected, printed, and spoil'd them ; I think Mr. 

 Flamsteed had only 1501. of the Money, as he told me, 

 (and so the Doctor, at best, designs to serve me,) 

 wherefore this Addition, when Printed, was so erroneous, 

 that some were burnt, and the Rest, in fact, destroyed, to 

 prevent the Publick being impos'd on by it; and Mr. 

 Flamsteed after that corrected and printed them at his 

 own Cost, as may appear by his Works." 



From the Catalogue of the Royal Society it 

 appears that there is a strange deficiency in their 

 controversial library, as to works from 1700 to 

 near 1750. It would seem as if' an expurgatorial 

 visit had been paid, for the purpose of expelling 

 everything which might be grating to a strong 

 Newtonian, even to works which use the infini- 

 tesimal principle or the differential notation. It 

 has certainly been a traditional feeling of the So- 

 ciety, that works of a certain sort are not to be 

 placed in the library. About 1830, a pamphlet of 

 charges against the Council, which made some noise 

 at the time, but which certainly demanded no no- 

 tice unless under a general rule, was refused a 

 place on the table of the meeting room by order of 

 the President. I have no doubt that, at the present 

 time, a more correct idea of the meaning of a library 

 exists. I have no doubt the officers of the Society 

 see that the first duty of the librarian of an Institu- 

 tion, as to works of controversy, is to take care that 

 the library contains all that has been written about 

 that Institution, true or false, courteous or scurri- 

 lous, with or without attempt at proof. A library 

 is a thing of ages : here am I, in 1857, writing 

 about a tract which I believe to have been dis- 

 carded in or after 1732, because its author told 

 naughty stories about Newton. When Mr. Baily 

 was compiling Flamsteed's case, he had a right to 

 expect that the library of the Society should have 

 put him in possession of the fact, if such were the 

 fact, that the whole or part of that case had been 

 made public shortly after the decease of Newton. 

 The defenders of Newton had a right to expect 

 the same information, out of which they might 

 possibly have extracted an argument. 



Had I merely found this copy of Browne in a 

 collection, I should have supposed that it had been 

 lost by accident, or borrowed and not returned. 

 But I couple with the facts of this work my know- 

 ledge of the very curious deficiencies which existed 

 in the Royal Society's library in 1839, when the 

 Catalogue was published, on every point of con- 

 troversy in which Newton had been concerned. 



This copy of Browne will probably find its way 

 back to the library from whence it came : and I 

 should not wonder if these remarks were found 

 pasted on the fly-leaf. If so, 1 have not the least 

 fear of the President refusing to let it lie on the 

 table. 



There is a curious account of a lunar theory by 

 Browne, which he affirms to have been printed 

 under the encouragement of Halley and Bradley, 

 delivered to the king by the author in person on 



