[46]. Translated from the Latin.
[47]. This very eminent mathematician, as well as learned and pious divine, died in the year 1677, aged only forty-seven years. See the life of this extraordinary man, written in 1683, by the learned Abraham Hill; prefixed to the first volume of the doctor’s theological works; a fifth edition of which, in three folio volumes, was published by archbishop Tillotson, in 1741. He also wrote and published many geometrical and mathematical works, all in Latin.
“The name of Dr. Barrow,” says Mr. Granger, one of his biographers, “will ever be illustrious, for a strength of mind and a compass of knowledge that did honour to his country. He was unrivalled in mathematical learning, and especially in the sublime geometry, in which he was excelled only by one man; and that man was his pupil, the great Sir Isaac Newton. The same genius that seemed to be born only to bring hidden things to light, to rise to the heights or descend to the depths of science, would sometimes amuse itself in the flowery paths of poetry, and he composed verses both in Greek and Latin.”
This “prodigy of learning,” as he is called by Mr. Granger, was interred in Westminster Abbey, where a monument, adorned with his bust, is erected to his memory.
[48]. Flavius Josephus informs us, (in his Jewish Antiquities, b. i. chap. 7. 8.) that the sons of Seth employed themselves in astronomical contemplations. According to the same historian, Abraham inferred the unity and power of God, from the orderly course of things both at sea and land, in their times and seasons, and from his observations upon the motions and influences of the sun, moon and stars. He further relates, that this patriarch delivered lectures on geometry and arithmetic to the Egyptians, of which they understood nothing, until Abraham introduced those sciences from Chaldea into Egypt, from whence they passed into Greece: and, according to Eupolemus and Artapan, he instructed the Phœnicians, as well as the Egyptians, in astronomy.
[49]. We are informed by some ancient writers, that when Babylon was taken, Calisthenes, one of Aristotle’s scholars, carried from thence, by the desire of his master, celestial observations made by the Chaldeans, nearly two thousand years old; which carried them back to about the time of the dispersion of mankind by the confusion of tongues: and those observations are supposed to have been made in the famous temple of Belus, at Babylon. But these accounts are not to be depended on: because Hipparchus and Ptolemy could find no traces of any observations made at Babylon before the time of Nabonassar, who began his reign 747 years before the birth of Christ; and various writers, among the ancients, agree in referring the earliest Babylonian observations to about the same period. In all probability, the Chaldean observations were then little more than matters of curiosity; for, even in the three or four centuries immediately preceding the Christian era, the celestial observations which were made by the Greeks were, for the most part, far from being of any importance, in relation to astronomical science.
Indeed, the knowledge of astronomy at much later periods than those in which the most celebrated philosophers of Greece flourished, must have been very limited and erroneous, on account of the defectiveness of their instruments. And, added to the great disadvantages arising from this cause, the ancients laboured under the want of a knowledge of the telescope and the clock; and also maintained a false notion of the system of the world; which was almost universally adhered to, until the revival and improvement of the Pythagorean system by Copernicus, who died in 1543. Within the last two hundred years, but, particularly, since the laws of nature have been made manifest by the labours and discoveries of the immortal Newton, the science of astronomy has made astonishing advances towards perfection.
[50]. This sovereign re-established the university of Naples, founded that of Vienna in Austria, in the year 1237, and imparted new vigour to the schools of Bologna and Salerno. He caused many ancient works in medicine and philosophy to be translated from the Arabian tongue; particularly, the Almagest of Ptolemy.
Cotemporary with the Emperor Frederick II. was Alphonso X. King of Castile, surnamed the Wise. This prince was the first who manifested a desire of correcting the Tables of Ptolemy. In the year 1240, even during the life of his father, he drew to Toledo the most experienced astronomers of his time, Christians, Moors, or Jews; by whose labours he at length obtained the Alphonsine Tables, in 1252 (the first year of his reign:) which were first printed at Venice, in 1483. He died in the year 1284.
[51]. His name was John Holywood; deduced, according to a practice prevalent in his time, from the place of his nativity, which was Halifax, a town in the west-riding of Yorkshire, in England, where he was born in the year 1204. It was formerly named Holy-wood; and was, probably, so called in Sacro-Bosco’s day: but the more ancient name of that place was Horton, or Hair-town; and Halifax signifies Holy-hair.—This great man was the inventor of the sphere; and wrote a work, entitled De Sphærâ, which was very celebrated. He died at Paris, in 1256.