527 



WARGENTIN, PETER WILLIAM. 



WARING, EDWARD. 



628 



into any country he pleased except England. He made choice of 

 France, where he landed early in 1649, aud continued to reside till 

 1651, when he obtained a licence from the parliament to visit London 

 on business. He resided two years in the vicinity of the metropolis. 

 At the close of that period he was allowed to visit his estates in Ire- 

 land. He continued to lead a strictly private life till the Restoration, 

 when he was reinstated in his office of auditor-general. 



In 1661 the university of Dublin elected Sir James Ware one of its 

 representatives. He was offered the title of baronet or viscount, but 

 declined both. The Marquis of Orinond created him first commis- 

 sioner of excise. He died in Dublin, on the 1st of December J 666. 

 He left two sons and two daughters, the only survivors of ten 

 children. 



Sir James Ware's more important works are: 1, 'De Praesulibus 

 Hiberuiae Commeutarius,' fol., Dublin, 1665. He has incorporated into 

 this work two of his Latin treatises ; the one containing the lives of the 

 Archbishops of Cashel and Tuam, published originally in 1626; the 

 other the lives of the bishops of Dublin, published in 1628. 2, 'De 

 Hibernia et Antiquitatibus ejus Disquisitiones,' London, 1654-58. 

 Into this work is incorporated his history of the Cistercian monas- 

 teries of Ireland. 3, ' De Scriptohbus Hiberniae Libri Duo/ Dublin, 

 1639-40. 4, 'Rerum Hiberuicarum Annalee, regnantibus Henrici VII., 

 Henrici VIII., Edvardo VI., et Maria,' fol. Dublin, 1662. The annals 

 of the reign of Henry VII. were first published in 1658, as an appen- 

 dix to the second edition of his Antiquities of Ireland ; and the annals 

 of the reign of Henry VIII. as a separate work in 1664-65. In 1633 

 he published, in one volume, Spenser's 'Dialogue on the State of 

 Ireland,' Campian's ' History of Ireland,'- and Meredith's ' Chronicle 

 of Ireland.' 6 and 7, In 1656 he published, at London, ' Opuscula 

 Sancto Patricio adscripta;' and in 1664, at Dublin, two letters 

 ascribed to the venerable Bede and the ' Lives of the Abbots of Wire- 

 mouth and Jarrow.' A translation of Sir James Ware's works into 

 English was published in 1705, by his second surviving son Robert; a 

 more complete edition, with additions, in 1739-46, by Walter Harris, 

 who married a granddaughter of Sir James. 



WARGENTIN, PETER WILLIAM, a distinguished Swedish astro- 

 nomer, was born at Stockholm, September 22, 1717. When he was 

 only twelve years of age there occurred a total eclipse of the moon, 

 and the observance of this phenomenon is said to have inspired him 

 with a taste for astronomical pursuits. He was intimately connected 

 with Klingenstierna and Celsius, by whom he was recommended to 

 study the motions of Jupiter's satellites ; and in 1741, on taking his 

 degree of Master in Arts, he maintained a thesis on the subject of those 

 motions. Wargentin speut, in fact, the greater part of his life in 

 efforts to correct the theory of the satellites ; and, confining himself 

 almost wholly to this branch of the science, the improvements which 

 he made in it obtained for him the reputation of being one of the 

 first astronomers of his age. 



On the death of Celsius, in 1744, he was chosen corresponding 

 member of the Academy of Paris, and five years afterwards he suc- 

 ceeded Elvius as perpetual secretary of the Academy of Stockholm. 

 In 1769 he was made a knight of the Polar Star, and in 1764 he was 

 elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. He was also a 

 member of the academies of St. Petersburg, Gottingen, Copenhagen, 

 Drontheim, &c., and his communications to these societies are very 

 numerous. When he was a candidate for the professorship at Upsal, 

 he delivered a discourse on the progress of astronomy since the com- 

 mencement of the century; and in the 'Memoirs of the Academy of 

 Stockholm ' there are several papers by him on the population of 

 Sweden. He also wrote dissertations on the transits of Venus which 

 took place in 1761 and 1769. 



In order to determine the parallax of the moon, Wargentin made, 

 at Stockholm, observations on that luminary simultaneously with 

 the corresponding observations which were made by La Caille at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, conformably to an agreement made between the 

 two astronomers previously to the voyage of the latter to the southern 

 hemisphere; and from the observations so made the value of the 

 parallax was correctly ascertained. 



Wargentin married in 1753, and became the father of six children, 

 three of whom survived him. He died December 13, 1783, leaving 

 the reputation of having been a man of amiable manners and disin- 

 terested character. His devotion to science prevented him from 

 paying due attention to his private affairs, and it is said that, near 

 the close of his life, he was in part indebted to his friends for the 

 means of being extricated from some embarrassments into which he 

 had fallen. The Academy aided him from its funds, and struck a 

 medal with an inscription denoting its sense of his merit. It also 

 procured for his family a pension from the government. 



An interval of time, in which the inequalities of the two first satel- 

 lites of Jupiter are compensated, had been noticed in 1726, by Dr. 

 Bradley, who however made no practical use of the period; and War- 

 gentiii, apparently without any knowledge of Bradley's discovery, 

 both found the values of the inequalities and the time of the com- 

 pensation. Wargentin also rectified the equation of Bradley respecting 

 the aberration of light, and that which depends on the excentricity of 

 Jupiter's orbit. His first tables of the movements of the satellites 

 were published in the 'Acta Societatis liegiae Upaaliensis, ad an. 

 1741 ;' and au improved edition was published by La Lunde, ia 1759, 



at the end of Halley'a tables for the planets and comets. Pound's 

 tables of the first satellite, though they generally gave the time of an 

 immersion or emersion within a minute of the truth, were sometimes 

 erroneous to the amount of five or six minutes; but those of War- 

 gcntin always agreed with the observations within one minute, and 

 thus they became of great importance by affording the means of deter- 

 mining the longitudes of stations. 



It is to be remarked that these tables were formed without any aid 

 from physical astronomy. Wargentin determined the motions of the 

 satellites from a combination of all the observations of their eclipses 

 which he could procure, and during the whole course of his life he 

 laboured to correct the errors which he discovered. He sent new 

 tables of the third satellite to Dr. Maskelyne, who published them in 

 the 'Nautical Almanac ' for 1771 ; and the Almanac for 1779 contains 

 au improved edition of the tables of the second satellite. 



WARHAM, WILLIAM, an eminent English prelate, was born at 

 Okeley in Hampshire, in the latter part of the 15th century, aud after 

 receiving his school education at Winchester, was admitted a fellow of 

 New College, Oxford, in 1475. Here he remained, having in duo 

 time taken his degree of LL.D., till 1488, when he is understood to 

 have been collated to some living in the church. Soon after however 

 he is found to be practising as an advocate in the Court of Arches, and 

 to be holding the office of Principal or Moderator of the Civil Law 

 School in the parish of St. Edward's, Oxford. His first public 

 employment, as far as is known, was the mission upon which he was 

 seut, along with Sir Edward Poynings, by Henry VII., in 1493, to 

 Philip, duke of Burgundy, to persuade him to exercise his influence to 

 put an end to the support and encouragement given to Perkiu War- 

 beck by Margaret, duchess-dowager of Burgundy. Bacon, who, in hia 

 ' History of King Henry VII.,' gives a speech addressed by him upon 

 this occasion to the archduke, calls him Sir William Warham, Doctor 

 of the Canon Law. Although his. endeavours in this affair were 

 attended with little or no success, he continued to rise in the good 

 opinion of Henry, who esteemed men of ability and knew how to dis- 

 tinguish them ; and he was made master of the rolls this same year, 

 keeper of the great seal in 1502, and lord chancellor on the l.-t of 

 January 1503. In 1503 he was also made bishop of London ; and in 

 1504 he attained the summit of his promotion by being raised to the 

 archbishopric of Canterbury. 



Warham opposed the marriage of Catherine, the widow of Prince 

 Arthur, with his brother Henry, both when it was first proposed in the 

 time of Henry VII., and afterwards when it was carried into effect iu 

 the beginning of the next reign. This brought him into collision with 

 Fox, bishop of Winchester, whose rivalry and hostility were afterwards 

 inherited by his protege" the famous Wolsey. The latter, now became; 

 the chief favourite of Henry VIII., was substituted for Warbam as 

 chancellor in 1516. Both before and after this, there were many con- 

 tests as to jurisdiction between the archbishop and the cardinal ; but 

 Warham lived to see the fall of Wolsey, aud even upon that event, in 

 1529, to have the great seal again offered to him, although his advanced 

 years induced him to decline it. In his latter years he drew upou 

 himself some discredit by his connection with the affair of the Maid of 

 Kent, to whose impostures, either from credulity or party spirit, ho 

 showed some inclination to listen. He died at St. Stephen's, near 

 Canterbury, 23rd of August 1532, leaving the primacy open to the new 

 faith and new politics of Cranmer. 



Warham was a great friend and patron of Erasmus, who dedicated 

 to him his edition of St. Jerome, and in his letters speaks in the 

 highest terms both of the learning and abilities and of the virtues of 

 the archbishop. 



WARING, EDWARD, the son of a wealthy farmer who resided 

 near Shrewsbury, was born in 1736. Having shown at an early age a 

 decided taste for geometry and algebra, he was sent, in 1753, to Mag- 

 dalen College, Cambridge, where he made great progress in mathe- 

 matical analysis. He attained the rank of senior wrangler, and took 

 the degree of Bachelor in Arts, in 1757. Three years afterwards the 

 Lucasian professorship of mathematics being vacant by the death of 

 Mr. Colson, Waring became a candidate for, and succeeded in obtain- 

 ing, that honourable post : he was opposed by Mr. Maseres, afterwards 

 Baron Maseres ; and having, in order that he might prove himself to 

 be qualified, published a portion of a mathematical work which he had 

 commenced, a war of pamphlets on the subject of the work was, 

 before the election, carried on between the two rival candidates and 

 their friends. Waring not having taken the degree which was 

 required by the statutes, a licence from the crown was obtained for 

 the purpose of enabling him to hold the appointment. 



In 1763, being then Master in Arts, Mr. Waring was elected a 

 Fellow of the Royal Society ; and in several of the volumes of the 

 'Philosophical Transactions' there are papers by him on subjects con- 

 nected with the theory of equations, centripetal forces, &c. In the 

 volume for 1779 is one on the method which he proposed for the 

 general resolution of equations. This consists in assuming for the 

 root of an equation the sum of a series of radical terms, the exponent 

 of each being the reciprocal of the exponent of the highest power of 

 the unknown quantity, and the number of terms in the series being 

 less by one than that exponent; on substituting that sum in the 

 equation, aud eliminating the radicals, the resulting equation, being 

 compared with that which is given, will afford the means of obtaining 



