2""! S. TI. 148., Oct. 30. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



349 



KOTE ON PKOFESSOR DE MORG.\n's ESTIMATE OF 

 SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. 



(2°* S. vi. 293.) 



In Professor De Morgan's conclusive reply 

 to tbe last query of Mr. Henbury, whether he 

 would asxert that tliose icJio have been great in ma- 

 thematics have often been great in other things f 

 be deals out but spare justice to tbe versatile — 

 nay, almost universal — genius of AVren, even if 

 be does not "damn with faint praise" the man 

 whom the learned, the eloquent, tbe witty, the 

 prince of matheinatic commentatoi-s, tbe illus- 

 trious Isaac Barrow, his coUeaj^ue and contem- 

 porary, describes as* " Certissime constat ut 

 prsBcociores neminem unquam prsstulisse spes, ita 

 nee maturiores quemquam fructus protulisser^ro- 

 digium oliin puer, nunc miraclum vii-i, imo demonum 

 honiinis, sufiecerit nominasse iugeniosissimum opti- 

 mum Christophorum AVrennum." 



Professor De Morgan says of this universal 

 genius, who passed not a day of bis long and 

 useful life without adding a line ta the book of 

 knowledge, " I shall astonish some of your readers 

 by telling them that Christopher Wren was a ma- 

 thematician of no mean reputation: see his name in 

 the Index of the Principia." Is it then surprising 

 that tbe mind which designed St. Paul's and all 

 around it, because he was an architect, an adopted 

 profession, " was a mathematician of no mean re- 

 putation ! " 



Tbe learned Professor refers to the Index of 

 the Principia, which was not published till after 

 1686, when Wren was in tbe zenith of bis fame 

 as a scholar, an artist, a geometrician, an astro- 

 nomer, tbe improver, if not the inventor, of the 

 barometer, an experimentalist on tbe laws of 

 motion and gravitation, the only solver of Pascal's 

 and Kepler's problems, a poet, a chemist, tbe 

 Crichton of art and science. I appeal to the 

 letter-books of tbe Royal Society, which I was 

 permitted to consult for my Memoirs of Wren, 

 by Sir Humphry Davy, and to Birch's History of 

 the Royal Society, vol. iv. p. 484., which states ; — 



"May 19, 1G86, Sir Joseph Williamson in the chair. 

 Ordered, that Mr. Newton's Phllosnphitc Naturalis Prin- 

 cipia Mathemaiica be jirinted fortliwith in quarto, in a 

 fair letter; and that a letter be written to bim to signify 

 the Society's resolution, and to de.sire his opinion as to 

 the print, volume, cuts, &c. Mr. Ilalley, the clerk U> the 

 Society, wrote accordingly on May 20th." 



Horace Walpole says, — 



"A variety of knowledge proclaims the universality, a 

 multiplicity of works the abundance, and St. Paul's "Ca- 

 thedral the grcalnegg, of Sir Christopher Wren's genius." 



• In his inaugural " Lecture, on succeeding to the 

 Clinir of Geometrv in (5re9liam College rendered vacant 

 by the resignation of Wren, 1602." See Isaaci liarrow 

 Opuicuta, Lond. 1C8I, folio, p. 100. 



And tbe distinguished philosopher Robert Ilooke, 

 the controversialist of Heveliiis, the inventor of 

 pocket* or spring watches, an observer of tbe 

 variations of the compass, and a great contributor 

 to natural science, writes : — 



" Of him I must affirm that since the time of Ar- 

 chimedes there scarce over met in one man so great 

 perfection, with such a mechanical head and so philo- 

 sophical a mind." 



Milizia, in bis Vite dei Architetti, says : — 



" Wren fu d' un carattere si modesto il disprezzo degl' 

 ignoranti ; egli era veramente dotti, e percib non parlava 

 che poco di rade." 



Oughtred, in tbe preface to his Clavis Mathe- 

 maticoe Oxonice, 1652, edit. 3., says of the youthful 

 Wren, — 



" Dominus Christophorus Wren, collegii Wadhamensis 

 commensalis generosus, admiraudos prorsus ingenio ju- 

 venis, qui nondum sexdecim annos natus, Astronomiam, 

 Gnomonicam, Staticam, Mechanicam prajclaris inveutis 

 auxit ; ab eoque tempore continub augere pergit." 



Nor must we forget that the name of Wren was 

 highly distinguished before tbe Principia of New- 

 ton was known ; for in 1662 his Astronomical 

 Lectures were published at tlie Oxford Univer- 

 sity Press : Prcdectiones Astronomicce Oxoidce Lect. 

 de Prohlematibus Sphcsribus : de Pascale : de Re 

 nauticu verum. See a manuscript on the subject 

 in the Lansdowne Collection in the British Mu- 

 seum. 



As to tbe celebrity given to Wren by the Index 

 to the Principia, as Professor De Morgan af- 

 firms, the case is tbe reverse, as I shall briefly 

 show. 



In 1671, nine years after tbe publication of 

 Wren's Pi-wlectiones Astronoinica, just mentioned, 

 it is recorded in Birch's History of the Royal So- 

 ciety (vol. ii. p. 501.), when Wren, Boyle, AVallis 

 and Hooke were engaged in philosophical inves- 

 tigations, particularly as to a recent publication 

 of Leibnitz on a new hypothesis, that — 



"At the last meeting of the Society this year Mr. Isaac 

 Newton was proposed candidate f for admission into the 

 Society, by the Lord Bishop of Salisbury. At the next 

 meeting he was elected a Fellow of the Eoj'al Society, 

 as is recorded in the first page of the new volume 



* Wren's was the age of C3'phers : he published two to 

 secure his discoveries of the laws of motion from piracy. 

 So did Pascal, Kepler, and other celebrities of that time; 

 and Robert Hoolce assumed a cypher, complaining of 

 piracj', if he communicated intelligibly, and thus an- 

 nounced his spring ivatch and his laws of the catenarian 

 curve. 



t The modesty of this great man is beautifully exem- 

 plified in his replj' to this communication. (See Phil. 

 Trans., vol. vii. No. 81.) "I am very sensible of the 

 honour done me by the Bishop of Salisbury in proposing 

 me candidate ; and which, I hope, will be further con- 

 ferred on me by my election into the Society. And, if .so, 

 I .shall endeavour to testify my gratitude, by communi- 

 cating what my poor and solitary endeavours can effect 

 towards the promoting philosophical design." 



