Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849 - Various 2 стр.

The most mischievous urchins are afraid to hurt the dowdy-cow, believing if they did evil would inevitably befall them. It is tenderly placed on the palm of the handof a girl, if possibleand the above rhyme recited thrice, during which it usually spreads its wings, and at the last word flies away. A collection of nursery rhymes relating to insects would, I think, be useful.

MATHEMATICAL ARCHÆOLOGY

Sir,I cannot gather from your "Notes" that scientific archæology is included in your plan, nor yet, on the other hand, any indications of its exclusion. Science, however, and especially mathematical science, has its archæology; and many doubtful points of great importance are amongst the "vexed questions" that can only be cleared up by documentary evidence. That evidence is more likely to be found mixed up amongst the masses of papers belonging to systematic collectors than amongst the papers of mere mathematiciansamongst men who never destroy a paper because they have no present use for it, or because the subject does not come within the range of their researches, than amongst men who value nothing but a "new theorem" or "an improved solution."

As a general rule I have always habituated myself to preserve every scrap of paper of any remote (and indeed recent) period, that had the appearance of being written by a literary man, whether I knew the hand, or understood the circumstance to which it referred, or not. Such papers, whether we understand them or not, have a possible value to others; and indeed, as my collections have always been at the service of my friends, very few indeed have been left in my hands, and those, probably, of no material value.

I wish this system were generally adopted. Papers, occasionally of great historical importance, and very often of archæological interest, would thus be preserved, and, what is more, used, as they would thus generally find their way into the right hands.

There are, I fancy, few classes of papers that would be so little likely to interest archæologists in general, as those relating to mathematics; and yet such are not unlikely to fall in their way, often and largely, if they would take the trouble to secure them. I will give an example or two, indicating the kind of papers which are desiderata to the mathematical historian.

1. A letter from Dr. Robert Simson, the editor of Euclid and the restorer of the Porisms, to John Nourse of the Strand, is missing from an otherwise unbroken series, extending from 1 Jan. 1751 to near the close of Simson's life. The missing letter, as is gathered from a subsequent one, is Feb. 5. 1753. A mere letter of business from an author to his publisher might not be thought of much interest; but it need not be here enforced how much of consistency and clearness is often conferred upon a series of circumstances by matter which such a letter might contain. This letter, too, contains a problem, the nature of which it would be interesting to know. It would seem that the letter passed into the hands of Dodson, editor of the Mathematical Repository; but what became of Dodson's papers I could never discover. The uses, however, to which such an unpromising series of letters have been rendered subservient may be seen in the Philosophical Magazine, under the title of "Geometry and Geometers," Nos. ii. iii. and iv. The letters themselves are in the hands of Mr. Maynard, Earl's Court, Leicester Square.

2. Thomas Simpson (a name venerated by every geometer) was one of the scientific men consulted by the committee appointed to decide upon the plans for Blackfriars Bridge, in 1759 and 1760.

"It is probable," says Dr. Hutton, in his Life of Simpson, prefixed to the Select Exercises, 1792, "that this reference to him gave occasion to his turning his thoughts more seriously to this subject, so as to form the design of composing a regular treatise upon it: for his family have often informed me that he laboured hard upon this work for some time before his death, and was very anxious to have completed it, frequently remarking to them that this work, when published, would procure him more credit than any of his former publications. But he lived not to put the finishing hand to it. Whatever he wrote upon this subject probably fell, together with all his other remaining papers, into the hands of Major Henry Watson, of the Engineers, in the service of the India Company, being in all a large chest full of papers. This gentleman had been a pupil of Mr. Simpson's, and had lodged in his house. After Mr. Simpson's death Mr. Watson prevailed upon the widow to let him have the papers, promising either to give her a sum of money for them, or else to print and publish them for her benefit. But nothing of the kind was ever done; this gentleman always declaring, when urged on this point by myself and others, that no use could be made of any of the papers, owing to the very imperfect state in which he said they were left. And yet he persisted in his refusal to give them up again.

Various

Notes and Queries, Number 09, December 29, 1849

OUR PROGRESS

We have this week been called upon to take a step which neither our best friends nor our own hopes could have anticipated. Having failed in our endeavours to supply by other means the increasing demand for complete sets of our "NOTES AND QUERIES," we have been compelled to reprint the first four numbers.

It is with no slight feelings of pride and satisfaction that we record the fact of a large impression of a work like the present not having been sufficient to meet the demand,a work devoted not to the witcheries of poetry or to the charms of romance, but to the illustration of matters of graver import, such as obscure points of national history, doubtful questions of literature and bibliography, the discussion of questionable etymologies, and the elucidation of old world customs and observances.

What Mr. Kemble lately said so well with reference to archæology, our experience justifies us in applying to other literary inquiries:

"On every side there is evidence of a generous and earnest co-operation among those who have devoted themselves to special pursuits; and not only does this tend of itself to widen the general basis, but it supplies the individual thinker with an ever widening foundation for his own special study."

And whence arises this "earnest co-operation?" Is it too much to hope that it springs from an increased reverence for the Truth, from an intenser craving after a knowledge of itwhether such Truth regards an event on which a throne depended, or the etymology of some household word now familiar only to

"Hard-handed men who work in Athens here?"

We feel that the kind and earnest men who honour our "NOTES AND QUERIES" with their correspondence, hold with Bacon, that

"Truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of Truth, which is the love-making or wooing of itthe knowledge of Truth, which is the presence of itand the belief of Truth, which is the enjoying of itis the sovereign good of human nature."

We believe that it is under the impulse of such feelings that they have flocked to our columnsthat the sentiment has found its echo in the breast of the public, and hence that success which has attended our humble efforts. The cause is so great, that we may well be pardoned if we boast that we have had both hand and heart in it.

And so, with all the earnestness and heartiness which befit this happy season, when

do we greet all our friends, whether contributors or readers, with the good old English wish,

A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

SIR E. DERING'S HOUSEHOLD BOOK

The muniment chests of our old established families are seldom without their quota of "household books." Goodly collections of these often turn up, with records of the expenditure and the "doings" of the household, through a period of two or more centuries. These documents are of incalculable value in giving us a complete insight into the domestic habits of our ancestors. Many a note is there, well calculated to illustrate the pages of the dramatist or the biographer, and even the accuracy of the historian's statements may often be tested by some of the details which find their way into these accounts; as for the more peculiar province of the antiquary, there is always a rich store of materials. Every change of costume is there; the introduction of new commodities, new luxuries, and new fashions, the varying prices of the passing age. Dress in all its minute details, modes of travelling, entertainments, public and private amusements, all, with their cost, are there: and last, though not least, touches of individual character ever and anon present themselves with the force of undisguised and undeniable truth. Follow the man through his pecuniary transactions with his wife and children, his household, his tenantry, nay, with himself, and you have more of his real character than the biographer is usually able to furnish. In this view, a man's "household book" becomes an impartial autobiography.

I would venture to suggest that a corner of your paper might sometimes be profitably reserved for "notes" from these household books; there can be little doubt that your numerous readers would soon furnish you with abundant contributions of most interesting matter.

While suggesting the idea, there happens to lie open before me the account-book of the first Sir Edward Dering, commencing with the day on which he came of age, when, though his father was still living, he felt himself an independent man.

One of his first steps, however, was to qualify this independence by marriage. If family tradition be correct, he was as heedless and impetuous in this the first important step of his life, as he seems to have been in his public career. The lady was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Nicholas Tufton, afterwards created Earl of Thanet.

In almost the first page of his account-book he enters all the charges of this marriage, the different dresses he provided, his wedding presents, &c. As to his bride, the first pleasing intelligence which greeted the young knight, after passing his pledge to take her for "richer for poorer," was, that the latter alternative was his. Sir Nicholas had jockied the youth out of the promised "trousseau," and handed over his daughter to Sir Edward, with nothing but a few shillings in her purse. She came unfurnished with even decent apparel, and her new lord had to supply her forthwith with necessary clothing. In a subsequent page, when he comes to detail the purchases which he was, in consequence, obliged to make for his bride, he gives full vent to his feelings on this niggardly conduct of the father, and, in recording the costs of his own outfit, his very first words have a smack of bitterness in them, which is somewhat ludicrous

He seems to sigh over his own folly and vanity in preparing a gallant bridal for one who met it so unbecomingly.

"1619.

"My DESPERATE quarter! the 3d quarter from Michaelmas unto New Year's Day.