[278] This was John Arbuthnot (c. 1658-1735), the mathematician, physician and wit. He was intimate with Pope and Swift, and was Royal physician to Queen Anne. Besides various satires he published a translation of Huyghens's work on probabilities (1692) and a well-known treatise on ancient coins, weights, and measures (1727).
[279] Greene (1678-1730) was a very eccentric individual and was generally ridiculed by his contemporaries. In his will he directed that his body be dissected and his skeleton hung in the library of King's College, Cambridge. Unfortunately for his fame, this wish was never carried out.
[280] This was the historian, Robert Sanderson (1660-1741), who spent most of his life at Cambridge.
[281] I presume this was William Jones (1675-1749) the friend of Newton and Halley, vice-president of the Royal Society, in whose Synopsis Palmariorum Matheseos (1706) the symbol π is first used for the circle ratio.
[282] This was the Geometrica solidorum, sive materiae, seu de varia compositione, progressione, rationeque velocitatum, Cambridge, 1712. The work was parodied in A Taste of Philosophical Fanaticism ... by a gentleman of the University of Gratz.
[283] The antiquary and scientist (1690-1754), president of the Royal Society, member of the Académie, friend of Newton, and authority on numismatics.
[284] She was Catherine Barton, Newton's step-niece. She married John Conduitt, master of the mint, who collected materials for a life of Newton.
A propos of Mrs. Conduitt's life of her illustrious uncle, Sir George Greenhill tells a very good story on Poincaré, the well-known French mathematician. At an address given by the latter at the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Rome in 1908 he spoke of the story of Newton and the apple as a mere fable. After the address Sir George asked him why he had done so, saying that the story was first published by Voltaire, who had heard it from Newton's niece, Mrs. Conduitt. Poincaré looked blank and said, "Newton, et la nièce de Newton, et Voltaire,—non! je ne vous comprends pas!" He had thought Sir George meant Professor Volterra of Rome, whose name in French is Voltaire, and who could not possibly have known a niece of Newton without bridging a century or so.
[285] This was the Edmund Turnor (1755-1829) who wrote the Collections for the Town and Soke of Grantham, containing authentic Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, from Lord Portsmouth's Manuscripts, London, 1806.
[286] It may be recalled to mind that Sir David (1781-1868) wrote a life of Newton (1855).