ILLUSTRATIONS 



preserved in the Public Record Office. The letter 

 itself runs as follows : 

 Right honorable : the famouse disputations in al the 

 partes of the mathematicks wch at this present 

 are held in Paris for the gayning of the lecture 

 wch was erected by the worthy scholer Petrus 

 Ramus to the greate increase of those excellent 

 sciences, put mee in mynd to sollicite yo" honour 

 agayne and agayne for the erection of that lecture 

 of the Arte of Navigation, whereof 1 have had 

 some speach with yo"" Honor, Sir Ffrancis Drake, 

 and Alderman Barnes and other. And that you 

 might meet with al inconveniences wch might 

 frustrate the expected profit wch is hoped for by 

 the erection of the same, I send yo^ honor heare 

 the testament of Petrus Ramus newely put out 

 agayne in printe and sent unto mee by Monsieur 

 Bergeron Ramus his executor, whereby you may 

 see, first the exceeding zeale that man had to 

 benefit his countrey, in bestowing 500 livres (wch 

 as yo"" honor knoweth) is fiftie pound sterling, 

 uppon establishing of that lecture, bequething not 

 halfe soe much to al the kinred and friends he 

 had. Secondly you may note that he being one 

 of the most famouse clerks of Europe thought 

 those sciences next after divinitie to be most 

 necessarie for the comonwelth, in that he erected 

 a newe lecture of the same, wheras there was one 

 before erected and endued with fiftie pound 

 stipend by the Kinge of Ffrance. Thirdly that 

 most provident order wch the good man by his wil 

 hath taken, is most requisite to be put in 

 execution in England : wch is, that every three 

 yeares, there shalbe publicke disputations signified to 

 al men by publicke writing, wherein yt shalbe free 

 for any man for three moneths space to dispute 

 agaynst the reader for the tyme being, who yf he 

 be found negligent, or yf any one of the competitours 

 be found more worthy by the opinion of certayne 



