Professor RigauiTs Account of James Stirling. 193 



questions, — the curve of swiftest descent, the properties of the 

 catenary, and a problem proposed by Liebnitz respecting the 

 curve which would cut certain hyperbolas at right angles. The 

 work came out by subscription ; and in an old account-book 

 of the Reverend James Pound, at that time rector of Wansted, 

 there is an entry of his having paid, " 1716, Oct. 10, by sub- 

 scription for Mr Stirling's books, * 5s." Edmund Stone pub- 

 lished a paper in the 41st volume Philosophical Transactions, 

 " concerning two species of lines of the third order, not men- 

 tioned by Sir Isaac Newton, nor by Mr Stirling.'" Stirling is 

 said to have been very angry at this statement ; and probably 

 he was not better satisfied with Du Gua, who likewise endea- 

 voured "f to detect some partial omissions in the enumeration. 

 It must, however, be borne in mind, that he could not have 

 been above one-and-twenty when he published his book ; and 

 we need hardly look for a stronger testimony to its real merit, 

 than the circumstance of its having been reprinted at Paris in 

 1797. The preface of this second edition speaks of it as 



" eximium opus cujus rarissimi libri alteram editionem 



jamdudum geometrae desiderabant." The bookseller intended, 

 if he met with encouragement, to proceed in the republication 

 of the scarcer works of distinguished mathematicians ; a design 

 which, in many instances, would have been very desirable to 

 have had executed, but which was not likely to be profitable to 

 those who undertook it. It was, however, no small testimony 

 of the high opinion entertained of this work, that it should he 

 selected for the first on which the trial was to be made. 



In 1719, Stirling contributed a paper to the 30th volume 

 of the Philosophical Transactions, entitled Mcthodus differen- 

 tia/is Neiotoniana illustrata. It was written in Latin, and in 

 the title prefixed to it, he simply calls himself e Coll. Ball. 

 Being a nonjuror, lie of course never graduated. He after- 

 wards published a more extensive work on the same subject, 

 in his Methodus differ entialis sivc tractatus de Summat'iojw et 

 Wterpolatione Serierum. This came out in quarto, and Hutton 

 says it was "first published in the year 1730, and again in 



" He subscribed for two copies, ;is appearo from the list prefixed to the 

 book, 

 t Montuclo, Hist, ilcs Mathematiquts, vol. iii. p. 69. 



