Notes on Wiltshire Books, 8fc, 



187 



The Life of Sir William Petty, 1623—1687, &c, by Lord Edmond 



Fitzmaurice. London. John Murray. 1895. 8vo. pps. [15] and 335. 



William Petty, born 1623, was son of a clothier at Romsey. Starting in 

 life as a cabin boy with absolutely nothing, he was educated at the Jesuits' 

 College at Caen, became Fellow of Brasenose, Oxford, and Deputy Professor of 

 Anatomy, and soon after Physician-General to the Army in Ireland. Here he 

 was appointed Secretary to Henry Cromwell, and carried out the great " Down 

 Survey " which still forms the legal title on which half the land in Ireland is 

 held ; in payment for which he received a large grant of land in Kerry, to which 

 ho added by subsequent purchases. (Refusing a peerage himself, his wife was 

 created Baroness Shelburne by James II. Her son, Charles, Lord Shelburne, 

 was attainted and his estates sequestrated in 1689, but they were restored in 

 1690. He died without issue in 1696. The barony was revived in 1699, in 

 favour of his brother Henry, who was created Viscount Dunkerron and Earl of 

 Shelburne in 1719. These titles became extinct on his death without issue 

 in 1751, when the estates passed to his nephew, John Fitzmaurice, the second 

 surviving son of Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry, who had married Anne, 

 daughter of Sir William Petty.) 



Sir William Petty was a scientific man and a mechanical genius of great 

 attainments. He was one of the founders of the Royal Society, and he wrote 

 largely on what would now be called political economy — anticipating in many 

 respects the conclusions afterwards reached by Adam Smith and others — and 

 in this and other respects was largely in advance of his age. Lord Edmond 

 Fitzmaurice has founded the present " Life " mainly upon the large collection 

 of MSS. and letters now at Bowood, which originally belonged to Sir William. 

 The book is well written, has a map of Ireland, a plate of Sir William's most 

 notable invention — the double-bottom ship — and two admirable reproductions 

 of portraits — by what appears to be a new process. Favourably reviewed in 

 the Times, March 1st ; Guardian, March 20th ; Devizes Gazette, March 

 28th ; Standard, April 4th, 1895, 



Crystallography : a Treatise on the Morphology of Crystals, by 

 N. Story-Maskelyne, M.A., F.E.S. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1895. 

 Cr. 8vo. pps. xii. and 521, with numerous diagrams. 



This is a strictly scientific work intended for students of a subject on which 

 the author is — to quote the Times — " one of the first living authorities." 



An Historical Sketch of the Town of Hungerf ord, in the County of 

 Berks, including a List of Constables, and Extracts from their 

 Accounts, together with an Abstract of the ancient Town Becords, 

 and other local documents, by Walter Money, F.S.A. Newbury, 

 1894. 8vo. Cloth, pps. 73. 



Hungerford, consisting of four tithings, one of which is wholly in Wiltshire, 

 and another partly so, is an ancient borough by prescription, of which the chief 

 officer is the constable, elected yearly on Hock Tuesday (the Tuesday following 

 the 2nd Sunday after Easter). On this occasion certain quaint survivals of 



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