PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 37 



from him (Northumberland) pensions of less value; so that in 

 1606, when the Earl was committed to the Tower for life, Har- 

 riott, Hues, and Warner were his constant companions, and were 

 usually called the Earl of Northumberland's Magi."* 



One thing, at least, have three centuries accomplished for sci- 

 ence. Its greatest workers are not now, as they were at the begin- 

 ning of the seventeenth century, dependent upon the liberality and 

 caprice of wealthy men. classed as their " pensioners" and " ser- 

 vants," and assigned places at their tables which they must needs 

 accept or famish. 



Harriott appears to have passed the latter years of his life at Sion 

 College, in Oxford, where he died in 1621. He was buried in St. 

 Christopher's Church, and the following eulogy was embodied in 

 his epitaph : 



QUI OMNES SCIENTIAS CALLUIT AC IN OMNIBUS EXCELLUIT 



MATHEMATICIS, PHILOSOPHICIS, THEOLOGICIS. 



VERITATIS, INDAGATOR STUDIOSISSIMUS, 



DEI TRINIUNIUS PIISSIMUS. 



He was especially eminent in the field of Mathematics. 

 " Harriott," says Hallam, " was destined to make the last great 

 discovery in the pure science of algebra. * * * Harriott ar- 

 rived at a complete theory of the genesis of equations, which 

 Cardan and Vieta had but partially conceived." f 



His improvements in algebra were adopted, we are told, by 

 Descartes, and for a considerable time imposed upon the French 

 as his own invention, but the theft was at last detected and ex- 



* Harriott was also a friend and companion of Raleigh during his im- 

 prisonment in the Tower (1603-16), and was his collaborator in the prep- 

 aration of the " History of the World." His fidelity was rewarded by that 

 distinguished authority, Chief-Justice Popham, who denounced him from 

 the bench as " a devil." 



t Hallam : Introduction to the Literature of Europe, 4th ed., 1854; 

 i, pp. 454, 456; ii, p. 223; iii, p. 181. See also Montucla : Histoirc des 

 Mathematiques, and Ersch and Gruber : Algemeine Encyklopcedie. 



