the Journals of t/ie late JlewhenBm'i'Ow. 187 



Captain Heathy for some time editor of the Ladies^ Diary for the 

 Stationers' Company,, and subsequently of the Palladium on his 

 own responsibility. His opposition to Simpson, Rollinson and 

 Turner (afterwards editors of the Diary, the Mathematician, and 

 the Mathematical Exercises, and who at times corrected his 

 errors), was inveterate; nor was his violent language towards 

 them at all justifiable under any circumstances. Its grossness 

 ultimately led to his dismissal from the editorship of the Diary, 

 which was immediately conferred upon Simpson. Mr. Emerson 

 is said to have assisted Heath in his attacks upon these able 

 mathematicians, in consequence of some loose expressions which 

 one of them was reported to have uttered respecting Emerson's 

 attainments in geometry. Mr. Robins is well known as the 

 author of many able works on Gunnery, Fluxions, Fortification, 

 &c., which formed the principal text-books on those subjects for 

 a long period. He was a candidate on two occasions for a Pro- 

 fessorship at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich ; " but 

 the interest,'' says Dr. Hutton, " which Mr. Muller had with 

 the Board of Ordnance carried the election in his own favour. 

 On this disappointment, Mr. Robins, indignant at the affront, 

 determined to show them, and the world, by his military publi- 

 cations, what sort of man he was that they had rejected." His 

 personal appearance does not seem to have been hitherto de- 

 scribed. 



" Monday, August 7th. I called upon Mr. Robertson, and 

 he told me that the Stationers' Company had allowed Hutton 

 £100 a year on condition of his not making any Almanacks for 

 any persons except themselves. Hutton, by the bi/e, does not 

 know how to make an Almanack. 



" I gave Mr. Keech, or rather he took, a copy of the Times of 

 High Water at London Bridge. 



" Mr. Brown, at the Tower, had five Tables this day, which I 

 had calculated for his Book on Gunnery. 



" Put these in the Diary. 



" 1 . Some Theorems on Maxima and Minima. 



" 2. Method of finding the Time and Azimuth. 



"3. Method of placing Sector in the Meridian. 



''4. Lalande's Table of the Solar System. 



"5. To find the length of a Parabolic Arc." 



The Mr. Robertson here noticed was John Robertson, F.R.S., 

 author of a Complete Treatise of Mensuration, Elements of Navi- 

 gation, &c. He was successively Master of the Royal Mathe- 

 matical School in Christ's Hospital, and Clerk and Librarian to 

 the Royal Society. Mr. Joseph Keech was a clerk and attorney 

 in the Lord Mayor's Court Office ; and from some original cor- 

 respondence between himself and the Revs. John Lawson and 



02 



