10*5 



BYRGIUS, JUSTUS. 



BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD. 



1066 



of still greater interest and importance, was a collection of all the 

 scattered laws of his own country, whether existing in the enact- 

 ments of the several legislative powers which had successively pre- 

 vailed there ; in the decisions of the courts, the practice of the bar, 

 or the customs and statutes of particular cities and districts. This 

 immense mass he had digested, so as to form a complete * Corpus 

 Juris Hollandici et Zelandici.' These two collections were intended 

 solely for his own use ; and in his will he left directions that they 

 should never be published. 



Byukershoek had long suffered from asthma ; to this, at last, was 

 added dropsy on the chest, of which he died on the 16th of April, 

 1743. He was twice married ; and by his first wife left six daughters. 

 A complete edition of his works was published at Geneva, in 1761, in 

 folio, by Vicat, professor of law at Lausanne; and another in two 

 volumes folio, at Leyden, in 1766. 



BYRGIUS, JUSTUS, or JUST BYRGE, a mathematician and 

 artist, chiefly distinguished by the reputation of having been the first 

 person who invented, or, at least, gave indications of numbers corre- 

 sponding to logarithms. He was born iu Switzerland, in the year 

 1552, and was long attached to the observatory which had been built 

 at Hesse-Cassel by the Landgrave William IV. ; at this place he made 

 celestial observations, which were afterwards published by Snell, and 

 he was occasionally employed in making mathematical and astronomi- 

 cal instruments. He is said to have invented an instrument similar to 

 that which is now called proportional compasses ; and to have con- 

 structed a pendulum clock in the year 1600, which is above fifty years 

 before the application of a pendulum to an instrument for measuring 

 time was made by Huyghens. He executed for the landgrave a celestial 

 globe or orrery, which was afterwards purchased by the emperor 

 Kudo.; h II., who appointed him his instrument-maker. On the death 

 of th indgrave he went to reside at Prague; but in 1632 he returned 

 to Camel, where he died in the following year. Dithmarsus, who 

 designates himself a pupil of Byrgius, observes that Byrgius had 

 studied neither Latin nor Greek ; and Kepler describes him as an 

 indolent and reserved man, who withheld his discoveries from the 

 public. 



Dithmarsus ascribes to his tutor the discovery of two rules for 

 resolving spherical triangles; one, when the three sides, and the other, 

 when two sides and the angle contained between them are given ; and 

 he considers them as much more simple than any which had been 

 used before that time. He states also that Byrgius had discovered a 

 method of dividing any given angle into equal parts, or into parts 

 having given relations to one another; and he adds, that by such 

 means he could compute with great facility a tabla of sines, either iu 

 natural or in logittic numbers. These last are supposed to be a species 

 of logarithms, and as the work of Dithmarsus was published in 1588, 

 or twenty-six years before the ' Canon ' of Napier [NAPIER], it is pos- 

 sible that Byrgius may have preceded the latter in the time of the 

 discovery. This is directly asserted by Kepler, in the preface to the 

 ' Rudolphine Tables,' where it is also observed that the Logistic indices 

 (the accents by which minutes, seconds, thirds, &c., of a degree are 

 designated in sexagesimal arithmetic) led Byrgius to the discovery of 

 logarithms similar to those of Napier. If this assertion be correct, it 

 may be presumed that Byrgius formed, by the means obscurely indi- 

 cated in the work of Dithmarsus, two series of numbers, one series in 

 an increasing arithmetical progression, and the other in a decreasing 

 geometrical progression ; like the denominations above alluded to, and 

 as in the original table of logarithms computed by Napier. 



From Montucla (Histoire des Mathe'matiques,' torn. 2) we learn that 

 there ia a passage in a work on Perspective by Bramer, in which it 

 is stated that Byrgius (his brother-in-law) had published at Prague, 

 in 1620, a table containing two series, one in arithmetical and the 

 other in geometrical progression ; it is added, that he entertained the 

 idea of publishing several of his works, among which was a table of 

 Bines to every two seconds of the quadrant, and that the distress 

 occasioned by the Thirty Years' War prevented the design from being 

 put in execution. An imperfect copy of the tables first mentioned 

 was in the possession of M. Kiistner, and from this it was found that 

 the logarithmic numbers began with zero, and increased constantly by 

 10, while the natural numbers began with 1, and formed an increasing 

 geometrical progression. Bramer infers from the publication of this 

 table, that his brother-in-law was in possession of logarithms long 

 before Napier had made the discovery ; but, as the ' Canon Mirificus ' 

 wa* published six years earlier than that table, this inference is 

 unfounded. It may be admitted however from the circumstances 

 mentioned by Dithmarsus, that twenty-six years before the publication 

 of Napier's book, Byrgius had a knowledge of the properties of the 

 numbers called logarithmic in facilitating arithmetical computations ; 

 but it does not appear that he was the first to form a table of them 

 for the purpose. 



It is remarkable that Kepler, who himself computed a table of 

 logarithmic numbers, does not mention Byrgius till the year 1627, 

 when he states that the latter had discovered logarithms similar to 

 those of Napier. Previously to that time he always spoke of Napier 

 a the inventor, and of his discovery as the most useful that had been 

 made since numbers were known, If therefore Kepler, in Germany, 

 had no knowledge of the discoveries of Byrgius from the work of 

 Dithmarsus, it cannot be supposed that the latter had found its way 



to Scotland, or that its obscure indications guided Napier to the 

 discovery which has immortalised his name. 



BYRON, GEORGE GORDON, LORD, was born on the 22nd of 

 January, 1788, in Holies-street, Cavendish-square, London. His 

 descent dates from the time of the Norman conquest of this island. 

 The Byrons, or Birons, who had been knights and baronets long before, 

 were first made lords during the reign of Charles I., whose cause they 

 espoused in opposition to that of the Commons of England. Not- 

 withstanding his ancient lineage, of which he was always proud, 

 Byron, owing to the imprudence and vices of his father (Captain 

 Byron, nephew to the then lord), was born and brought up in what, 

 considering the notions of his class, must be called poverty. Owing 

 to an accident attending his birth, one of his feet was distorted, a 

 defect which was a source of pain and mortification to him during the 

 whole of his life. 



In 1790, when he was only two years old, his mother, who had 

 separated from her husband, retired with her child to Scotland, her 

 native country, aud established herself in humble lodgings in the town 

 of Aberdeen. Proud, impetuous, and of a most inflammable temper, 

 this unfortunate woman was not at all fitted to correct those heredi- 

 tary vices which Byron in after years was accustomed to say were 

 strong within him. The most important of all the parts of education 

 is that for which the child stands indebted to its mother, and nothing 

 could well be worse than the poet's maternal tuition and example. 

 As for his father he took no charge of him, but withdrawing to the 

 continent in order to escape his creditors, he died at Valenciennes in 

 1791. When about five years old, Byron was sent to a day-school at 

 Aberdeen, kept by one Bowers, who received from the poet's mother 

 five shillings a quarter for such instruction as he could give. After 

 staying rather more than a year at this school, he was placed under 

 the tuition of a poor but well-informed Scotch clergyman, called Ross, 

 who taught him to read. From the care of Mr. Ross his mother 

 removed him to that of Mr. Paterson, the son of his shoemaker, who 

 taught him a little Latin, and attended to him with much kindness 

 until Mrs. Byron sent him to the free grammar-school of Aberdeen, 

 where he was studying when the death of the lord, his grand-uncle, 

 recalled him to England, and to the enjoyment of such a provision as 

 suited a peer of the realm in his minority. This uncle, to whom he 

 succeeded, was a man of turbulent passions, and a melancholy occur- 

 rence had thrown a gloom over the last thirty years of his life. In a 

 duel, or as some said, rather a chance scuffle arising out of the heat 

 and intoxication of the moment, he killed his neighbour and relative 

 Mr. Chaworth. The House of Peers, before whom he stood his trial 

 in 1765, acquitted him, but Ms own conscience and his country neigh- 

 bours never did. He shut himself up iu his patrimonial mansion, the 

 old and then melancholy Abbey of Newstead in Nottinghamshire, 

 and thenceforward led an unsocial and eccentric course of life. He 

 took no interest in his heir, who was destined to illustrate the proud 

 name of Byron : he never seems to have exercised any pecuniary 

 generosity towards him, and it is said that on the rare occasions when 

 he mentioned him, it was always as " the little boy who lives at 

 Aberdeen." In 1798, when the poet succeeded to his uncle's titles and 

 estates, he was little more than ten years old. His mother, whose 

 weak head was turned by the sudden change iu her fortunes, imme- 

 diately removed to Newstead Abbey, and took great pains to keep 

 always before his eyes the fact that, though only a boy, he was now a 

 lord. To attend both to body and mind, she employed one Lavender 

 to straighten his unfortunate foot, and a Mr. Rogers to instruct him in 

 Latin. The former, who was an impudent quack, did him no good ; 

 but the latter, a respectable schoolmaster of Nottingham, improved 

 him considerably by reading passages from Virgil and Cicero with 

 him. In less than a year Byron's mother carried him to London, 

 whence, after consulting more able surgeons, who could no more cure 

 a deformity than the empiric had been able to do, she had him con- 

 veyed to Dulwich and placed in a quiet boarding-school, under the 

 direction of Dr. Glennie. But for the indiscretions and constant inter- 

 ference of Mrs. Byron, Dr. Gleunie might not only have made him a 

 better scholar than he ever became, but have checked in the germ at 

 least some of those infirmities of temper and those vices which embit- 

 tered hli after-years. He had not been two years under the charge of 

 this excellent man, when his mother removed him to Harrow, where, 

 with the exception of the usual long vacations, he remained till 1805, 

 when he was sent to Cambridge. During his stay at Harrow he was 

 irregular and somewhat turbulent in his habits ; but he frequently 

 gave signs of a frank, noble, and generous spirit, which endeared him 

 to his school-fellows : he had no aptitude for merely verbal scholar- 

 ship ; and his patience seems to have failed him in the study of Greek. 

 He however read a great Seal, and by occasional fits of application 

 laid in some store of miscellaneous knowledge. During his vacations 

 his mother continued to spoil him by alternate fits of harshness aud 

 indulgence. She introduced him to masquerades and other scenes of 

 excitement and fashionable fooleries before he was fifteen years old. 

 It was at about this period of his life that he became acquainted with 

 Miss Chaworth, the heiress of Annesley, and descendant of the Mr. 

 Chaworth whom his lordship's great uncle had killed. We have no 

 doubt that this very circumstance had a great effect on his excitable 

 and romantic imagination. In one of his memorandum-books he 

 wrote " Our union would have healed feuds in which blood had been 



