[381]Sir Henry Billingsley[AQ], knight.—On the north side of the chancell of St. Katharine Coleman church London at the upper end is this inscription, viz:—
Here lieth buried the body of Elizabeth, late the wife of Henry Billingsley, one of the Queene's majestie's customers of her port of London, who dyed the 29th day of July in the yeare of our Lord God 1577.
In obitum ejus.
Stat sua cuique dies atque ultima funeris hora
Cum Deus hinc et mors invidiosa vocant;
Nec tibi nec pietas tua vel forma, Elizabetha,
Praesidium leto[382] ne trahereris erat.
Occidis exactis ternis cum conjuge lustris,
At septem vitae lustra fuere tuae.
Fecerat et proles jam te numerosa parentem,
Filiolae trinae, caetera turba mares.
Undecimo partu cum mors accessit et una
Matrem te et partum sustulit undecimum—
Scilicet ex mundo, terrena ex fece, malisque,
Sustulit; at superis reddidit atque Deo.
Est testis sincera fides, testis tua virtus,
Grata viro virtus, grata fidesque Deo.
* * * * * * *
Quem posuit tumulum tibi conjux charus, eodem
In tumulo condi mortuus ipse petit.
<Vide> the Register book <of the church>.
Memorandum:—Billingsley (a village) is in the countie of Salop. 'Tis a Shropshire familie; but the village now is one Mr. Norton's.
This Sir Henry Billingsley was one of the learnedst citizens that London has bred. This was he that putt forth all Euclid's Elements in English with learned notes and preface of Mr. John Dee, and learned men say 'tis the best Euclid. He had been sheriff and Lord Mayor of the city of London. His howse was the faire howse in Fenchurch street where now Jacob Luce lives, a merchant, of of whom quaere +. Vide in Fuller's Worthies and Stowe's Survey. His Euclid was printed at London by John Day, 1570.
'The Translator to the Reader—Wherfore considering the want and lack of such good authors hitherto in our English tongue, lamenting also the negligence and lacke of zeale to their countrey in those of our nation to whom God hath given both knowledge and also abilitie to translate into our tongue and to publish abroad such good authors and bookes: Seeing moreover that many good witts, both of gentlemen and others of all degrees, much desirous and studious of these artes,—I have for their sakes with some chardge and great travaile faithfully translated into our vulgar tounge and set abroad in print this booke of Euclid wherunto I have added plaine declarations and examples, manifold additions, scholies, annotations, and inventions which I have gathered.'—He promises (here) some more translations and sayes that in religion he hath alreadie don, quaere.
Memorandum P. Ramus in his Scholia's sayes that the reason why mathematiques did most flourish in Germanie was that the best authors were rendred into their mother tongue, and that publique lectures of it were also read in their owne tongue—quod nota bene.
Memorandum when I was a boy, one Sir ... Billingsley had a very pleasant seate with a faire[383] oake-wood adjoyning to it, about a mile ½[384] east of Bristoll—quaere if[385], etc.