WeRead Powered by ReaderPub
Brief Lives, Vol. 1 cover

Brief Lives, Vol. 1

Chapter 249: Henry Gellibrand (1597-1637).
Open in WeRead

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches compiled from the author's manuscript notes, offering anecdotal portraits of a wide range of literary, scientific, political, and social figures across several generations. Entries blend remembered quotations, learned citation, personal recollection, and occasional gossip, producing uneven but vivid character sketches. Material is presented alphabetically and supplemented by antiquarian notes, a short theatrical piece, and facsimiles of manuscript drawings and plans. An introduction outlines editorial principles and reproduces the manuscript spellings and citations where appropriate, preserving the informality and immediacy of the original notes.


Henry Gellibrand (1597-1637).

[967]Henry Gellibrand was borne in London. He was of Trinity Colledge in Oxon (vide Anthony Wood's Antiq. Oxon.). Dr. Potter and Dr. <William> Hobbes knew him. Dr. Hannibal Potter was his tutor, and preached his funeral sermon in London. They told me that he was good for little a great while, till at last it happened accidentally, that he heard a Geometrie[968] lecture. He was so taken with it, that immediately he fell to studying it, and quickly made great progresse in it. The fine diall over the Colledge Library is of his owne doeing. Construxit Logarithmos Henrici Briggs, jussu Autoris τοῦ μακαρίτου, 1631. He was Astronomy Professor in Collegio Greshamensi, Lond. Scripsit Trigonometriam. He being one time in the country, shewed the tricks of drawing[969] what card you touched, which was by combination with his confederate, who had a string that was tyed to his leg, and the leg of the other, by which his confederate gave him notice by the touch; but by this trick, he was reported to be a conjuror.

Vide Canterbury's Doome[970] about Protestant martyrs, <inserted in> the Almanac; <and> that he kept conventicles in Gresham College.