378 Notices respecting Nelw Books. 



In Mr. Horner's nonfigurate method, inultiplyuiu: ami adiliii* 

 in one line is indispensably necessary, which has been the means 

 of Mr. Nicholson's learning it; I have seen him work division, 

 and he always did it by the long Italian method, in which the 

 products are written down. 



Mr. Nicholson must have an ill intention in wondering that 

 I should have made no mention of Mr. Horner; I should have 

 made no mention of Mr. Nicholson, if I had not thought myself 

 ill-used by him. 



I had the Supplement com])lete in theory, in the month of 

 May 1819 ; my object was to dispense with the figurate numbers 

 (as related in the preface), which are so inconvenient in equations 

 above the fifth or sixth powers as to render it necessary to have 

 recourse to the abridged method. The dispensing with the arith- 

 metical equivalents was not in my thoughts, as is evident from 

 those numbers being used in the Supplement. 1 had no thoughts 

 of a complete example being necessary, not doubling whoever 

 understood the theory would know how to put it in practice. 



Afterward, considering the arithmetical equivalents needless, I 

 made several trials in solving equations; and finding various ad- 

 vantages attend the not making use of them, I thought an ex- 

 ample in that form could not be deemed superfluous ; I therefore 

 added the last example afterwards: all the rest had been in the 

 printer's hands from the first. 



Mr. Nicholson is not perfectly consistent with himself in all 

 parts. While in some places he seems to acknowledge my being 

 the inventor, in other places he seems to deny it as much as he 

 can. In page 81, he says : " I am confident that he never had 

 any clear notions of treating the sulyect. The sum of the whole 

 is, that he submitted his work to me for my opinion," &c. But 

 the fact is as follows: I having prepared the manuscript for tlie 

 press, but dreading the thoughts of being in debt with a printer, 

 without a prospect of being able to pay in a reasonable time, 

 was eager to get as many subscril)ers as possible ; and being per- 

 suaded that a recommend:Uion from Mr. Nicholson would be 

 of service, I applied to him for that purpose. He readily said 

 he would be willing to do that ; l)iit he must see it first, in order 

 to know what he was to recommend : the manuscript was there- 

 fore put into his hand. He afterwards recommended such alter- 

 ations in the notation, a"' to make it necessary to write it all 

 over again. This being done, he wrote a recommendation on 

 the inside of one of his book covers, and read it to me, when no 

 third person was present. I asked him to let me have it; he 

 answered he would publish it himself. I then informed Mr. Ro- 

 bert Gibson, of Hampstead, of this affair, who said he would 



endeavour 



