Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/468

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386


NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. vm. NOV. i6, 1907.


DE MORGAN'S ARITHMETICAL BOOKS. This small list is a continuation of the addi- tions printed at 7 S. iv. 513. Those marked* had not been seen by Prof. De Morgan :

Leybourn, William. Arithmetick Vulgar, De- cimal, Instrumental, Algebraical. Ed. 3, 1668. De Morgan had not met with any earlier than the 4th, 1678.

  • Brampton, John. Tabular Arithmetick. 12mo,

1701.

  • Fisher, George. Arithmetick in the Plainest

Methods. 12mo, Lond., 1719.

  • Royer, Gideon. Arithmetick. 8vo, 1721.

Webster, W. Arithmetick in Epitome. An earlier ed. 8vo, 1722.

  • Jordaine, J. Duodecimal Arithmetick. 8vo,

1727.

  • Halliday, John. New London Method of Arith-

metick. 8vo, 1749.

  • Fisher, Thomas. Arithmetick Ed. 8, Lond.,

1750.

  • Champion, J. Tutor's Assistant in Teaching

Arithmetic. Sm. 4to, about 1750.

Dilworth, Thomas. Schoolmaster's Assistant. An ed. 1787.

W. C. B.

BROUGHAM ON GIBBON. I do not know whether Brougham's ' Lives of Men of Letters and Science who nourished in the Time of George III.' are much read now ; but I think they deserve to be, and the account of Gibbon is particularly worthy of notice. Gibbon's great learning cannot inspire enthusiasm for his character, though he had his strong points. His work is, as Brougham well puts it, " tinged with pre- judices quite unworthy of a philosopher, and altogether alien to the character of an historian." Of course this alludes especially to his expressions about the early Christians and their persecutors. There are some slips in Brougham's life of Gibbon which it may be worth while to point out.

In speaking of the changes in the uni- versities at different times (vol. ii. p. 284) he mentions " the Cambridge of the Aireys, the Herschells. . . ,&c." This misspelling of the names of Airy and Herschel may be the fault of the printers, who, by the way, often have to bear the blame of a good deal for which they are not really responsible. But another mistake in the same life is so odd that it must be the author's fault, or, at any rate, that of his handwriting. At p. 286 he speaks of Gibbon's " boyish essay on the Age of Socrates. . . .which he after- wards committed to the flames." The brochure alluded to was really on the age of Sesostris ; it was probably only a chrono- logical inquiry, and would be wholly without interest now, as, indeed, would be anything respecting ancient Egyptian history that


was written before the decipherment of the hieroglyphics.

Although I have no wish to criticize Brougham's life of Johnson (for whom he seems to have had a great dislike) in the same volume, there is rather an amusing instance of loose writing in it at p. 10, where we read :

" On his [Johnson's] return to Lichfield, he found his father's affairs in a state of hopeless insolvency ; and before the end of the year (1731) he died." According to the laws of language, that death ought to be Johnson's own ; but of course that of his father is meant.

There are two very odd mistakes also in Brougham's account of Robertson in vol. i. of the same work. At p. 290 he makes Columbus's brother appear before Henry VIII. of England, instead of Henry VII. ; and at p. 296 he twice spells Washington Irving's name as Irvine. W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

" RACHE." The foundation deed (dated 2 Oct., 1617) of the " Maison de Dieu for six poor persons. . . .in the parish of Aylesford " is printed in J. Thorpe's ' Registrum Rof- fense ' (1769), pp. 157-60. The founder,

"Sir William Sedley, grauntethe, assigneth, and appoyntethe by these presents, to the said warden and poore of the said hospitall, and to theire suc- cessors, that they forever hereafter shall and may have and enjoye a common scale to serve for the affaires and business of the same hospitall, ingraved with a goates heade rache and circumscribed with these words, SIGILLUM HOSPITAL. SANCTE TRINITATIS

IN AYLESFORD, IN COM. KANC."

The goat's head " rache " was obviously what a modern herald would call " erased " ; and I venture to suggest that the heraldic use of " erased " is, in fact, an entirely separate word, being a variant of the past participle of arace, arache. Q. V.

PAGINATION. Attention has been called recently in a local journal to the vagaries of printers and publishers in this matter, wherein those worthies, not content with inserting the numbers at the bottom of the page, have introduced them into the context, to its disfigurement and the annoyance of the reader. The former method is objection- able enough, but the latter is simply mon- strous. I regret that I have mislaid the hideous illustration, but it ran somewhat after this fashion : " The entire country-side was laid bare by the devastating 246 hurri- cane," &c.

I hope it is not too late to protest against this unsightly and irritating system of pagination. J. B. McGovERN.^

St. Stephen's Rectory, C.-on-M., Manchester.