Seth Ward (1617-1688/9).
<Birth and education.>
[1177]Seth Ward[CN], lord bishop of Sarum, was borne at Buntingford, a small market-towne in Hartfordshire, anno Domini 1618[1178], December the ..., (when the great blazing starre appeared). His father was an attorney there, and of a very honest repute.
At <16> yeares old he went to Sydney Colledge in Cambridge; he was servitor[XCVI.] to Dr. <Samuel> Ward (Master of the Colledge, and Professor of Divinity), who, being much taken with his ingenuity and industry, as also with his suavity of nature, quickly made him scholar of the howse, and after, fellowe. Though he was of his name, he was not at all akinne to him (which most men imagined because of the great kindnesse to him); but the consimility of their dispositions was a greater tye of friendship then that of blood, which signifies but little, as to that point.
[XCVI.] Expunge 'servitour,' euphoniae gratia.—MS. Aubr. 8, fol. 8.
<Mathematical studies.>
His father taught him common arithmetique, and his genius lay much to the mathematiques, which being naturall to him, he quickly and easily attained.
Sir Charles Scarborough, M.D. (then an ingeniose young student, and fellowe—quaere—of Caius Colledge in Cambridge), was his great acquaintance; both students in mathematiques; which the better to perfect, they went to Mr. Willam Oughtred, at Albury in Surrey, to be enformed by him in his Clavis Mathematica, which was then a booke of aenigmata. Mr. Oughtred treated them with exceeding humanity, being pleased at his heart when an ingeniose young man came to him that would ply his Algebra hard. When they returned to Cambridge, they read the Clavis Mathematica to their pupills, which was the first time that that booke was ever read in a[1179] university. Mr. Laurence Rooke, a good mathematician and algebrist, (and I thinke had also been Mr. Oughtred's disciple[1180]) was his great acquaintance. ☞ Mr. Rooke (I remember) did read (and that admirably well) on the sixth chapter of the Clavis Mathematica in Gresham Colledge.