VOL. LIII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. tQ 



Since therefore the ducts of several of the letters indicate this inscription to 

 be of a later date, we cannot but suppose it to have been many years (perhaps 

 several centuries) posterior to the conclusion of the first Punic war. And since 

 Hannibal Ben Barmelec, or Bormilc, is mentioned therein as a person of consi- 

 deration, whose death was greatly lamented by the people; perhaps he was either 

 a popular senator of Malta, or one of the sufferers there, (the Punic form of 

 government not improbably prevailing in that island, even when dependent on 

 the Romans, as it did in other places that had been subject to the Carthaginian 

 state) a century at least after Julius Caesar had given the finishing stroke to the 

 liberties of the Maltese. 



XLVL Algebraical and Geometrical Problems. By Edward fVaring,* M. A., 

 and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Cambridge, and F. R. S. From the 

 Latin, p. 294. 



Pbob. I. To find how many impossible roots has the given biquadratical equa- 

 tion X* + qaf^ — rx ■{- s =0. 



• Edward Waring, m. d., was born near Shrewsbury, about the year 1736; where also he died, 

 Aug. 15, 1798, in the 63d year of his age. He was the son of a wealthy farmer of the Old Heath, 

 near that place, and where he received the early part of his education : whence he was removed to 

 Cambridge, and was admitted in 1753 a member of Magdalen College. Here his talents for ab- 

 struse calculations soon distinguished him; so that at the time of taking his first or bachelor's de- 

 gree, in 1757, he was considered as a prodigy in those sciences which make the subject of the exa- 

 mination on such occasions, when he was distinguished as senior wrangler, or the first student of the 

 year, John Jebb being the 2d on the list. The Lucasian professorship of mathemaiics in the Uni- 

 versity becoming vacant, by the death of Mr. John Colson, in 175,9, before Mr. Waring was of 

 sufficient standing for the next or Master of Arts degree, which is a necessary qualification for that 

 office, for which he was desirous to become a candidate ; this defect was supplied by a royal man- 

 date, conferring that degree, and he was elected to the professorship in Jan. 1760. On this occa- 

 sion some remarkable circumstances occurred. Mr. W. before his election, gave a small specimen 

 of his abilities, as a proof of his fitness for that office, by the publication of the first chapter of his 

 Miscellanea Analytica. This specimen was attacked, and his election opposed, by Dr. Powell, of 

 St. James's College, partly from a principle of regular conformity to the academic rules, and partly 

 to serve his friend Mr. Masseres (the present cursitor baron of the exchequer) then a candidate also 

 for the vacant professorship. This opposition produced several pamphlets between the two parties, 

 by Dr. Powell and Mr. Masseres on the one part, and by Mr. Waring, assisted by his friend Mr. 

 Wilson (afterwards one of the judges. Sir John Wilson) on the other part ; which however ended in 

 the success and election of the latter. 



In I7ti2 Mr. W. published complete his Miscellanea Analytica, one of the most abstruse books, 

 written on the abstrusest parts of algebra ; which at least had the effect of extending the author's 

 fame for ingenuity, though it might not otherwise be of any real use. Mathematics however did 

 not engross the whole of his attention. He could allow some part of his time to the study of medi- 

 cine ; and in 1767 he was admitted to the degree of m.d., though he never after practised as a phy- 

 sician Mathematics again engaged his chief attention, whence he successively produced a number 

 of pieces, of the same abstruse kind as the former ; several of which were inserted in different vol*. 



D 2 



