the Journals of the late Reuben Burrow. " %i9 



be done without incurring considerable expense she dropped the 

 intention of publishing, although her husband (Mr. Jones) died 

 worth some two or three thousand pounds. Mr. Jones left his 

 library, which was considered the most curious and valuable of 

 any at that time, to Lord Macclesfield, who was very anxious to 

 publish a catalogue of it, which Jones had made out after a very 

 curious method. This manuscript catalogue was shown to Dr. 

 Bliss, who was afterwards Astronomer Royal, and he pretended 

 that the Latin was very erroneous in the declensions and cases, 

 and that it would be an endless piece of business to write the 

 manuscript over again corrected. This was occasioned by a 

 pique that Bliss had against Jones, for the latter refusing him 

 a copy of the Abstract of the Conic Sections, which was after- 

 wards printed by Mr. Robertson in the Philosophical Trans- 

 actions. When Bliss applied for the copy, Mr. Jones made ex- 

 cuses and pretended he had not got them by him, but when he 

 next saw Mr. Robertson he told him that he had refused Dr. 

 Bhss a copy for the following reasons : — ' In the first place, if I 

 gave them to him he does not understand them, and in the next 

 it is the way of the parsons to make everything they can get 

 their own ; besides, he would probably give them out at the Uni- 

 versity, and then some of them would publish the properties as 

 their own, and I do not know but that I may some time or other 

 wish to publish them myself.^ His Course of Mathematics, and 

 other papers which he had intended to publish, fell into Lord 

 Macclesfield^s hands, who about this time had an electioneering 

 affair against Sir Francis Dashwood, in Oxfordshire, which cost 

 him more than a hundred thousand pounds, and almost ruined 

 him. After this he kept no accounts, and also married impro- 

 perly ; his family were in confusion, and when he died Lady 

 Macclesfield ordered all his papers to be burned except such as 

 related to money matters. Mr. Joneses papers were never heard 

 of more, and some think they were burned among the rest, but 

 Horsfall of the Temple, who was one of those employed, says 

 that there were no such papers among those that were destroyed. 

 Others say that a number of papers were sent down to Sher- 

 borne Castle in the late Lord^s lifetime, and that the present 

 Lord has them yet in his possession, although he may not 

 know it. 



" January 16. My advertisement about Maskelyne was in the 

 St. Jameses Chronicle. 



" Major Watson sent for me and told me he had spoken to 

 Lord Townsend about making an appointment in the Tower for 

 a master to teach mathematics to the cadets in the Drawing 

 Room, and that he had recommended me to fill the place. 

 . *^ January 21. I called on Mr. Robertson and dined with him. 



