The second character above alluded to is one who carried mathematical researches a far greater length than Newton himself: the assistance which he rendered in this respect, even to Newton, has never been acknowledged in modern times: though the work before us shows that his contemporaries were fully aware of it, and never thought of concealing it. In his theory of gravitation, in which, so far as he went, we have every reason to believe he was prior to Newton, he did not extend his calculations to the distance of the moon; his views in this matter were purely terrestrial, and led him to charge according to weight. He was John Stiles, the London and Cambridge carrier: his name is a household word in the Macclesfield Letters, and is even enshrined in the depths of Birch's quartos. Dary informs Newton—let us do his memory this justice—that he had paid John Stiles for the carriage. At the time when the railroad to Cambridge was opened, a correspondent recommended the directors, in our columns, to call an engine by the name of John Stiles, and never to let that name go off the road. We do not know whether the advice was followed: if not, we repeat it.
Little points of life and manners come out occasionally. Baker, the author of a work on algebra much esteemed at the time, wrote to Collins that their circumstances are alike, "having a just and equal number of chargeable olive-branches, and being in the same predicament and blessed condemnation with you, not more preaching than unpaid, and preaching the art of contentment to others, am forced to practise it." But the last sentence of his letter runs as follows: "I have sent by the bearer ... twenty shillings, as a token to you; desiring you to accept of it, as a small taste from Yours, Thos. Baker." In our day, men of a station to pay parish taxes do not offer their friends hard money to buy liquor. But Flamsteed[[562]] writes to Collins as follows: "Last week he sent us down the counterpart, which
my father has scaled, and I return up to you by the carrier, with 5l. to be paid to Mr. Leneve for the writing, I have added 2s. 6d. over, which will pay the expenses and serve to drink, with him." This would seem as odd to us as it would have seemed thirty years ago that half-a-crown should pay carriage for a deed from Derby to London, and leave margin for a bottle of wine: in our day, the Post-office and the French treaty would just manage it between them. But Flamsteed does not limit his friend to one bottle; he adds, "If you expend more than the half-crown, I will make it good after Whitsuntide." Collins does not remember exactly where he had met James Gregory, and mentions two equally likely places thus: "Sir, it was once my good hap to meet with you in an alehouse or in Sion College." There is a little proof how universally the dinner-hour was twelve o'clock. Astronomers well know the method of finding time by equal altitudes of the sun before and after noon: Huyghens calls it "le moyen de deux égales hauteurs du soleil devant et après dîner."[[563]]
There is one mention of "Mr. Cocker,[[564]] our famous English graver and writer, now a schoolmaster at Northampton." This is the true Cocker: his genuine works are specimens of writing, such as engraved copy-books, including some on arithmetic, with copper-plate questions and space for the working; also a book of forms for law-stationers, with specimens of legal handwriting. It is recorded somewhere that Cocker and another, whose name we forget, competed with the Italians in the beauty of their flourishes. This was his real fame: and in these matters he was great. The eighth edition of his book of law forms (1675), published shortly after Cocker's death, has a preface signed "J. H." This was John Hawkins, who became possessed of Cocker's papers—at least he said so—and
subsequently forged the famous Arithmetic,[[565]] a second work on Decimal Arithmetic, and an English dictionary, all attributed to Cocker. The proofs of this are set out in De Morgan's Arithmetical Books. Among many other corroborative circumstances, the clumsy forger, after declaring that Cocker to his dying day resisted strong solicitation to publish his Arithmetic, makes him write in the preface Ille ego qui quondam[[566]] of this kind: "I have been instrumental to the benefit of many, by virtue of those useful arts, writing and engraving; and do now, with the same wonted alacrity, cast this my arithmetical mite into the public treasury." The book itself is not comparable in merit to at least half-a-dozen others. How then comes Cocker to be the impersonation of Arithmetic? Unless some one can show proof, which we have never found, that he was so before 1756, the matter is to be accounted for thus.
Arthur Murphy,[[567]] the dramatist, was by taste a man of letters, and ended by being the translator of Tacitus; though many do not know that the two are one. His friends had tried to make him a man of business; and no doubt he had been well plied with commercial arithmetic. His first dramatic performance, the farce of "The Apprentice," produced in 1756, is about an idle young man who must needs turn actor. Two of the best known books of the day in arithmetic were those of Cocker and Wingate.[[568]] Murphy chooses Wingate to be the name of an old merchant who
delights in vulgar fractions, and Cocker to be his arithmetical catchword—"You read Shakespeare! get Cocker's Arithmetic! you may buy it for a shilling on any stall; best book that ever was wrote!" and so on. The farce became very popular, and, as we believe, was the means of elevating Cocker to his present pedestal, where Wingate would have been, if his name had had the droller sound of the two to English ears.
A notoriety of an older day turns up, Major-General Lambert.[[569]] The common story is that he was banished to Guernsey, where he passed thirty years in confinement, rearing and painting flowers. But Baker, in 1678, represents him as a prisoner at Plymouth, sending equations for solution as a challenge: probably his place of confinement was varied, and his occupation also.
[General Lambert was removed to Plymouth, probably about 1668. His daughter captured the son of the Governor of Guernsey, who therefore probably was reckoned an unsafe custodier thenceforward; though he assured the king that he had turned the young couple out of doors, and had never given them a penny. Great importance was attached to Lambert's safe detention: probably the remaining republicans looked upon him as to be their next Cromwell, if such a thing were to be. There were standing orders to shoot him at once on the first appearance of any enemy before the island. See Notes and Queries, 3d S. iv. 89.]