"I'

HAVE undertaken to write the life of John Napier, of Merchifton, a man famous all the world over, for his great and fortunate difcovery of logarithms in trigonometry, by which the eafe and expedition in calculation, have fo wonderfully affifted the fcience of aftronomy, and the arts of practical geometry and navigation.

"Elevated above the age in which he lived, and a benefactor to the world in general, he deserves the epithet of Great.

"Napier lived in a country of proud barons, where barbarous hofpitality, hunting, the military art, and religious controverfy, occupied the time and attention of his contemporaries, and where he had no learned fociety to affift him in his researches.

"This extraordinary perfon was born at Merchifton, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, in the year 1550.

"He was the fon of fir Archibald Napier, of Merchiston, mafter of the mint in Scotland, and of Janet Bothwell, daughter of Mr. Francis Bothwell, one of the fenazors of the college of juftice.

"That his family was of ancient establishment in the counties of Dunbarton and Stirling, appears

from the public records, and from the private archives of his houfe.

"John de Napier, from whom he fprung in the 12th generation, was was one of thofe proprietors of lands, who fwore allegiance to Ed ward the Firft, of England, in the year 1206. William, from whom he counted in the ninth generation, was governor of the caftle of Edinburgh, in the year 1401, whofe fon Alexander was the first baron or laird of Merchifton, and was thè father of another of the fame name, who was vice-admiral of Scotland, and one of the commiflioners from king James III. at the court of London, in the years 1461 and 1464.

"From the family of Lennox, earl of Lennox, he derived a coheirship by the marriage of Elizabeth Mentieth, of Rufky, to his great-grandfather's father, fir John Napier, of Merchifton: but on his ancestors he reflected more honour and celebrity than he received, and his name will probably be famous, when the lineage of Plantagenet will be remembered only by genea logifts, and when pofterity may know no more of his, than we now know of the families of Plato, Ariftotle, Archimedes, or Euclid.

"It is fit, that men fhould be A 2 taught

taught to aim at higher and more permanent glory than wealth, of

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"From Napier's own authority we learn, that he was educated at St. Andrews, where, writes he, "in 66 my tender years and bairn-age, at "schools, having on the one part ❝contracted a loving familiaritie "with a certain gentleman a papift, "and on the other part being at"tentive to the fermons of that "worthy man of God, maifter "Chriftopher Goodman, teaching upon the Apocalyps, I was mov"ed in admiration against the blind"nefs of papifts that could not "most evidentlie fee their feven "hilled citie of Rome, painted out "there fo lively by faint John, as "the mother of all spiritual whore"dome that not onlie burfted I "oute in continuall reasoning a"gainst my faid familiar, but also "from thenceforth I determined "with myself by the affiftance of "God's fpirit to employ my study "and diligence to fearch out the "remanent mysteries of that holy "booke (as to this houre praised be "the Lord I have bin doing at all "fuch times as conveniently I "might have occafion)," &.

"The time of Napier's matris culation does not appear from the regifter of the univerfity of St. Andrew's, as the books afcend no higher than the beginning of the laft century; but as the old whore of Babylon affumed, in the eyes of the people of Scotland, her deepest tinge of icarlet about the year 1566, and at that time correfponds to the literary bairn-age of John Napier, I fuppofe, he then imbibed the holy fears and commentaries of maifter

"I have not been able to trace Merchifton from the university, till the publication of his Plain Difcovery, at Edinburgh, in the year 1593; though Mackenzie, in his lives and characters of the most eminent writers of the Scottish nation, informs us (without quotation, however, of any authority) that he paffed fome years abroad, in the Low Countries, France, and Italy, and that he applied himfelf there, to the study of mathematics.

"In the British Museum there are two copies of his letter to Anthony Bacon, the original of which, is in the archbishop's library at Lambeth, entitled "Secret Inventions, profitable and neceffary, in thefe days, for the defence of this ifland, and withstanding strangers enemies to God's truth and religion," which I have caused to be printed, in the Appendix to this tract. This letter is dated, June -, 196, about which time it appears, as thall be fhewn hereafter, that he had fet himself to explore his logarithmic canon.

"I have enquired, without fuccefs, among all the defcendants of this eminent perfon, for papers or letters, which might elucidate this dark part of his history; and if we confider that Napier was a reclufe mathematician, living in a country very inacceffible to literary correfpondence, we have not much room to expect, that the most diligent explorations would furnish much to the purpofe, of having the progrefs of his ftudies.

"Among Mr. Briggs's papers, preferved in the British Museum, I looked for letters from Napier, but found only what Mr. Briggs calls

his

his Imitatio Nepeirea, five applicatio omnium fere regularum, fuis Logarithmis pertinentium, ad Logarithmos; which feems to have been written in the year 1614, foon after the publication of the Canon. "Though the life of a learned man is commonly barren of events, and beft unfolded in the account of his writings, difcoveries, improvements, and correfpondence with the learned men of his age, yet I anxiously fought for fomewhat more, with refpect to a character I fo much admired; but my researches have hitherto been fruitless. Perhaps from the letters, books, and collections of focieties or of learned individuals, to which I have not had accefs, fomething may hereafter be brought to light: and one of the inducements to of fer a sketch of this kind to the public, is the tendency it may have to bring forth fuch information. His Plain Difcovery has been printed abroad, in fevral languages, particularly in French, at Rochelle, in the year 1693, 8vo. announced in the title, as revised by himself. Nothing could be more agreeable to the Rochellers, or to the hugonots of France, at this time, than the author's annunciation of the pope as antichrift, which in this book he has endeavoured to fet forth, with much zeal and erudition.

"That Napier had begun, about the year 1593, that train of enquiry, which led him to his great atchievement in arithmetic, appears from a letter to Crugerus from Kepler, in the year 1624; wherein, mentioning the Canon Mirificus, he writes thus, "Nihil autem fupra Neperianam rationem effe puto: "etfi Scotus quidem literis ad Ty"chonem, anno 159, Scriptis jam "fpem fecit Canonis illius mirifici," which allusion agrees with the idle

ftory mentioned by Wood in his Athene Oxon. and explains it in a way perfectly confonant to the rights of Napier as the inventor; concerning which, I fhall take occafion to comment, in the account of his works: nor is it to be supposed, that had this noble difcovery been properly applied to fcience, by Juftus Byrgius, or Longomontanus, Napier would have been univerfally acknowledged by his contempora ries, as the undifputed author of it.

"No men in the world, are fo jealous of each other as the learned, and the leaft plaufible pretence of this fort, could not have failed to produce a controverfy, in the republic of letters, both in his lifetime and after his death, when his praises were founded all over Europe.

"When Napier had communi❤ cated to Mr. Henry Briggs, mathematical profeffor in Grefham college, his wonderful canon for the logarithms, that learned profeffor fet himself to apply the rules in his Imitatio Nepeirea, which I have already mentioned, and in a letter to archbishop Ufher, in the year 1615, he writes thus, "Napier, "lord of Merchifton, hath fet my "head and hands at work with his "new and admirable logarithms. "I hope to see him this fummer if "it pleafe God, for I never faw a "book which pleased me better, and "made me more wonder."

"It may feem extraordinary to quote Lilly the astrologer with refpect to fo great a man as Napier; yet as the paffage I propofe to tranfcribe from Lilly's life, gives a picturefque view of the meeting be twixt Briggs and the inventor of the logarithms, at Merchifton near Edinburgh, I fhall fet it down in the original words of that mountebank knave.

A 3

"I will