( 255 ) ' ;* 



Abstract qftJie Memoirs of John Napier of Merchiston. By 

 M. BioT * With Notes by the Translator. 



The following translation of M. Biofs very able and interest- 

 ing paper, of which the title is given below, will be acceptable to 

 our readers. The history of the illustrious Inventor of Loga- 

 rithms had remained too long unrecorded, and this early and 

 important attention which Mr Napier's work has met with on 

 the Continent, is as flattering to the science of Scotland as it 

 must be gratifying to the author of those memoirs. 



First Article. — Montaigne, in his chapter of Proper 

 Names, puts the question. To whom belongs the honour of so 

 many victories, to Guesquin, Glesquin, or Geaquin, seeing 

 thus variously the name of that famous constable is written^ 

 If intellectual conquests and the glory of arms admit of any 

 analogy, and we shall net pause to consider which would 

 suffer by the comparison, the same question might be put with 

 regard to him who, simply by an arithmetical invention, in- 

 creased, as it were an hundred fold, the scientific life of Kep- 

 ler, Halley, Bradley, Mayer, Lacaille, Piazze, Delambre, — pro- 

 longed that of La Place, nay of Newton himself, and siill inde- 

 finitely continues the like miracle for all whose zeal, if it be not 

 genius, prompts them to emulate those great men in the appli- 

 cation of mathematics to the phenomena of nature. For to this 

 hour we cannot say with certainty whether that puissant instru- 

 ment, the logarithms, be due to Neper, Napeir, or Napier.f 



Even at the time it was first made public, in the year 1614, 

 the author was so httle known beyond his own country, that 

 Kepler, who afterwards embraced and adopted that invention 



• Mdmmre sur J. Napier de Merchiston^ conienarU sa Genealogie^ sa Vie^ le Tab' 

 leau des temps ou il a vccu, et une hisloire de rinventhn des Logarithmes. Par 

 Mark Napier Ex trait en trots articles, par M. Biot. — Tire du Journal des Sa- 

 vants, annce 1335. 



f "NVe find these distinct varieties in the biography we are abstracting. A 

 letter from the Inventor of Logarithms to his father, quoted at page 150, is 

 signed Neper. His dedication of the exposition of the Apocalypse, address- 

 ed to the King of Scotland, James VI., is signed Napeir, p. 172. His testa- 

 ment, quoted p. 431, is signed Nmpper ; lastly, his own biographer calls him 

 throughout Napier.^M. Biot. 



