1810,] : Pat 
144 J 
-- MEMOIRS AND REMAINS OF EMINENT PERSONS. 
memorrs of JOHN WALLIS, 
METRY, iv the UNIVERSITY of OXFORD, 
KEEPER of the ARCHIVES, MEMBER 
Of the RGYAL SOCIETY, dud CHAPLAIN 
t7#@ ORDINARY 0 KING CHARLES If, 
Originally compiled from scarce 
DOCUMFNTS.: : 
R. WALLIS was the son of the 
Rey, John Wallis, M. A. minister of 
Ashford, in Kent, and was born in 
November, 1616: his father dying whea' 
he was young, he.was indebted for his 
education to the care apd kindness. of 
his mother, who sent him. to school, 
first to Tenterden, in his native county, 
and afterwards to Felsted, in Essex, 
where he became pretty well acquainted 
with the Latin and Greek languages, 
and also obiained some knowledge of 
Hebrew. Being at home during the 
Christmas vacation, he learnt from a 
younger . brother the first rules of 
common arithmetic, which was his ini- 
tiation into mathematics, “ang all the 
teaching he had; but he afterwards pro- 
secuted it as a pleasing ‘diversion at 
spare hours, for mathematics were not 
at that time Jooked upop as academical 
learning. In the year 1632, he was 
sent to the university of Cambridge, and 
theré admitted in Emanuel college, 
under the tuition of Mr, Anthony Bure 
gess, a pious, learned, and able scholar, 
‘a good disputant, an eminent preacher, 
and afterwards minister of Satton-Cole- 
field, in Warwicksbire. Dr. Wallis 
proceeded Bachelor of Arts in 1637, 
and Master of Arts'in 1640: he entered 
into orders, and was ordained by dishep 
Curle; and lived about:a year as chaplain: 
in the house of Sir Richard Darby, at 
Buttercrum,, in Yorkshire; and two 
years with the Lady Vere, (widow of the 
Lord Horatio Vere.) He was afterwards 
fellow of Queen's college, Cambridge, - 
but quitted his fellowship on his marriage 
in 1644. About this time he was also 
appointed one of the secretaries to the 
Assembly of Divines at Westminster ; 
and, during his attendance on the assem- 
bly, he was a minister in-London, first 
in Fencharch-street, and afterwards in 
Tronmonger-lane, where he continued 
till his removal to Oxford.. There the 
doctor prosecuted his studies; till he at 
length attained! to such proficiency, as to 
_ * be reputed one of the Syst mathematici- 
‘to consider.of it. 
was (says Mr. Searborough,) one of the 
greatest masters of geometry that hath 
appeared in any of these later ages; the 
honour of our country, and the admi- 
ration of others.” Mr, Oughtred says, 
‘« he was a person adorned with all inve. 
nivus and excellent arts and sciences, 
pious: and industrious, of a deep and 
diffusive learning, an accurate judgment 
in all mathematical studies, and happ 
and successful to admiration{in ¢ecypher. 
ing the most dilficult and — intricate 
writings; ‘which was indeed. his peculiar 
honour, and affords the greatest instance 
ever known of the force and penetration 
of the human understanding.” I shall 
here give the reader the doctor’s owa 
account of the first-exutset of this busi- 
ness. “ About the beginning of our 
civil wars, a chaplain of Sir Wilham 
‘Waller showed me, as a curiosity, an 
intercepted letter written in cypher, (and: 
it was indeed the first thine I had ever 
seen of the kind); and asked me, be. 
tween jest and earnest, if £ could make 
any think of it? and was surprised, when 
I told him, perhaps Eimight. It was 
about ten o'clock when we rose from 
supper; and I withdrew to. my chamber 
By the number of 
different characters in it, I judged it 
could be no more than a new alphabet; 
and before I went to bed I found it out; 
which was nmiy first attempt upon decy- 
phering: and I was soon pressed to 
attempt one ofa different character, 
consisting of numerical figures, extending 
to four or five hundred numbers, with 
other characters tutermixed, which was 
a letter from Secretary Windebank, 
(then in France,) to his son in England ; 
and was‘a cypher hard enough, hot un- 
becoming a secretary of state,” And 
when, upon importunity, I had taken a 
great deal of pains with it without suc- 
cess, I threw it by; but after some time 
I resumed it again, and had the goad hap 
to master It. ; 
* Being encouraged by this success 
beyond expectation, I have ventured 
upon many others, and seldom failed of 
any that I have attempted for many 
years ; though of late the Frenvh methods 
of cyphers are grown so extremely intrie 
cate, that [ have been obliged to quit 
many of them, without having patience 
to go threugh with them.” ‘The following 
D.D.. ans of the age in which he lived. “Tle 
sometime SAVILIAN PROFESSOR Of GEO= , 
extraers © 
ooh : 
