Brief Lives, Vol. 2

William Oughtred (1574-1660).

[463]Gulielmus Oughtred[AM] natus 5 Martii 1574, 5^h P.M.

[464]Mr. Oughtred:—Mr. <John> Sloper tells me that his father was butler of Eaton Colledge: he remembers him, a very old man.

[465]William Oughtred:—vide Henry Coley's Astrologie.—A note from my honoured and learned friend Thomas Flud, esq., who had been High Sheriff of Kent, scilicet, he was Mr. Oughtred's acquaintance. He told me that Mr. Oughtred confessed to him that he was not satisfied how it came about that one might foretell by the starres, but so it was that it fell out true as he did often by his experience find. Mr. T. Flud obiit....

[466]This[467] from Mr. Uniades, who was his scholar.

[Mr. Oughtred's children:—

• 1. William.
• 2. Henrey: haz a son (of the Custom-house).
• 3. Benjamin: a bachelor: yet living.
• 4. Simon.
• 5. Edward.
• 6. George.
• 7. John.
• Marget.
• Judeth: married a glazier.
• Elizabeth.

One of them <married> to Christopher Brookes of Oxford, a mathematical-instrument-maker.]

[468]Mr. William Oughtred, B.D., Cambr., was borne at Eaton, in Buckinghamshire, neer Windsor, Anno Domini 1574, March the fifth, 5 hours P.M.

His father taught to write at Eaton, and was a scrivener; and understood common arithmetique, and 'twas no small helpe and furtherance to his son to be instructed in it when a schoole-boy. His grandfather came from the north for killing a man. The last knight of the family was one Sir Jeffrey Oughtred. I thinke a Northumberland family (quaere).

Anno Domini ... he was chosen to be one of the King's scholars at Eaton Colledge (vide register). A.D. ... he went to King's Colledge, in Cambridge.

Anno aetatis 23, he writt there his Horologiographia Geometrica, as appeares by the title.

Anno Domini ... he was instituted and inducted into the rectory or parsonage of Albury, in com. Surrey, lett for[469] a hundred pounds per annum: he was pastor of this place fifty yeares.

He maried ... Caryl (an ancient family in those parts), by whom he had nine sonnes (most lived to be men) and four daughters. None of his sonnes he could make[470] scholars.

He was a little man, had black haire, and blacke eies (with a great deal of spirit). His head[471] was always working. He would drawe lines and diagrams on the dust.

His oldest son Benjamin, who lives in the house with my cosen Boothby (who gives him his dyet) and now an old man, he bound apprentice to a watchmaker; who did worke pretty well, but his sight now failes for that fine worke. He told me that his father did use to lye a bed till eleaven or twelve a clock, with his doublet on, ever since he can remember. Studyed late at night; went not to bed till 11 a clock; had his tinder box by him; and on the top of his bed-staffe, he had his inke-horne fix't. He slept but little. Sometimes he went not to bed in two or three nights, and would not come downe to meales till he had found out the quaesitum.

He was more famous abroad for his learning, and more esteemed, then at home. Severall great mathematicians came over into England on purpose to converse[472] with him. His countrey neighbours (though they understood not his worth) knew that there must be extraordinary worth in him, that he was so visited by foreigners.

When Mr. Seth Ward, M.A. and Mr. Charles Scarborough, D.M., came (as in pilgrimage, to see him and admire him)—they lay at the inne at Sheeres (the next parish)—Mr. Oughtred had against their comeing prepared a good dinner, and also he had dressed himselfe, thus, an old red[473] russet cloath-cassock that had been black in dayes of yore, girt with a old leather girdle, an old fashion russet hatt, that had been a bever, tempore reginae Elizabethae. When learned foreigners came and sawe how privately he lived, they did admire and blesse themselves, that a person of so much worth and learning should not be better provided for.

Seth Ward, M.A., a fellow of Sydney Colledge in Cambridge (now bishop of Sarum), came to him, and lived with him halfe a yeare (and he would not take a farthing for his diet), and learned all his mathematiques of him. Sir Jonas More was with him a good while, and learn't; he was but an ordinary logist before. Sir Charles Scarborough was his scholar; so Dr. John Wallis was his scholar; so was Christopher Wren his scholar; so was Mr. ... Smethwyck, Regiae Societatis Socius. One Mr. Austin (a most ingeniose man) was his scholar, and studyed so much that he became mad, fell a laughing, and so dyed, to the great griefe of the old gentleman. Mr. ... Stokes, another scholar, fell mad[474], and dream't that the good old gentleman came to him, and gave[475]him good advice, and so he recovered, and is still well. Mr. Thomas Henshawe, Regiae Societatis Socius, was his scholar (then a young gentleman). But he did not so much like any as those that tugged ☞ and tooke paines to worke out questions. He taught all free.

He could not endure to see a scholar write an ill hand; he taught them all presently to mend their hands. Amongst others Mr. T. H.[476] who when he came to him wrote a lamentable hand, he taught to write very well. He wrote a very elegant hand, and drew his schemes most neatly, as they had been cut in copper. His father (no doubt) was an ingeniose artist at the pen and taught him to write so well.

He was an astrologer, and very lucky in giving his judgements on nativities; he would say, that he did not understand the reason why it should be so, but so it would happen; he did beleeve that some genius or spirit did help. ☞ He has asserted the rational way of dividing the XII houses according to the old way, which (the originall) Elias Ashmole, esq., haz of his owne handwriting; which transcribe. Captaine George Wharton hath inserted it in his Almanack, 1658 or 1659.

The countrey people did beleeve that he could conjure, and 'tis like enough that he might be well enough contented to have them thinke so. I have seen some notes of his owne handwriting on Cattan's Geomantie.

He has told bishop Ward, and Mr. Elias Ashmole (who was his neighbour), that 'on this spott of ground,' (or 'leaning against this oake,' or 'that ashe,') 'the solution of such or such a probleme came into my head, as if infused by a divine genius, after I had thought on it without successe for a yeare, two, or three.'

Ben Oughtred told me that he had heard his father say to Mr. Allen (the famous mathematicall instrument-maker), in his shop, that he had found out the Longitude; sed vix credo.

Nicolaus Mercator, Holsatus (whose mathematicall writings ...), went to see him few yeares before he dyed. 'Twas about midsommer, and the weather was very hott, and the old gentleman had a good fire, and used Mr. Mercator with much humanity (being exceedingly taken with his excellent mathematicall witt), and one piece[477] of his courtesie was, to be mighty importunate with him to sett on his upper hand next the fire; he being cold (with age) thought he[478] had been so too.

He[479] was a great lover of chymistry, which he studyed before his son Ben can remember, and continued it; and told John Evelyn, of Detford, esq., R.S.S., not above a yeare before he dyed, that if he were but five yeares (or three yeares) younger, he doubted not to find out the philosopher's stone. He used to talke much of the mayden-earth[XLIII.] for the philosopher's stone. It was made of the harshest cleare water that he could gett, which he lett stand to putrify, and evaporated by cimmering[480]. Ben tended his furnaces. He has told me that his father would sometimes say that he could make the stone. Quicksilver refin'd and strain'd, and gold as it came naturall over[XLIV.]——

The old gentleman was a great lover of heraldry, and was well knowne[481] with the heralds at their office, who approved his descent[XLV.].

Memorandum:—he struck-out above halfe of the accedence, and wrote new instead. He taught a gentleman in halfe a yeare to understand Latin, at Mr. Duncombe's his parishioner. Quaere his daughter Brookes at Oxford for it[482].

[483]His wife was a penurious woman, and would not allow him to burne candle after supper, by which meanes many a good notion is lost, and many a probleme unsolved; so that Mr. <Thomas> Henshawe, when he was there, bought candle, which was a great comfort to the old man.

The right hon^ble Thomas[484] Howard, earle of Arundel and Surrey, Lord High Marshall of England, was his great patron[485], and loved him intirely. One time they were like to have been killed together by the fall at Albury of a grott, which fell downe but just as they were come out. ☞ My lord had many grotts about his house, cutt in the sandy sides of hills, wherin he delighted to sitt and discourse.

In the time of the civill warres the duke of Florence invited him over, and offered him 500 li. per annum; but he would not accept of it, because of his religion.

Notwithstanding all that has been sayd of this excellent man, he was in danger to have been sequestred, and ... Onslowe that was a great stickler against the royalists and a member of the House of Commons and living not far from him—he translated his Clavis into English and dedicated it to him to clawe with him, and it did soe his businesse and saved him from sequestration. Now this Onslowe was no scholar and hated by the country[486] for bringing his countrymen of Surry into the trap of slaughter when so many petitioners were killed at Westminster and on the roads in pursuite, anno Domini 16—.

I have heard his neighbour ministers say that he was a pittiful preacher; the reason was because he never studyed it, but bent all his thoughts on the mathematiques; but when he was in danger of being sequestred for a royalist, he fell to the study of divinity, and preacht (they sayd) admirably well, even in his old age.

He was a good Latinist and Graecian, as appears in a little treatise of his against one Delamaine, a joyner, who was so sawcy to write against him (I thinke about his circles of proportion): upon which occasion I remember I have seen, many yeares since, twenty or more good verses made[487], which begin to this purpose:—

Enquire for them and insert them.

Before he dyed he burned a world of papers, and sayd that the world was not worthy of them; he was so superb. He burned also severall printed bookes, and would not stirre, till they were consumed. His son Ben was confident he understood magique. Mr. Oughtred, at the Custom House, (his grandson) has some of his papers; I myselfe have his Pitiscus, imbelished with his excellent marginall notes, which I esteeme as a great rarity. I wish I could also have got his Bilingsley's Euclid, which John Collins sayes was full of his annotations.

He dyed the 13^th day of June, 1660, in the yeare of his age eighty-eight + odde dayes. Ralph Greatrex, his great friend, the mathematicall instrument-maker, sayed he conceived he dyed with joy for the comeing-in of the king, which was the 29^th of May before. 'And are yee sure he is restored?'—'Then give me a glasse of sack to[489]drinke his sacred majestie's health.' His spirits were then quite upon the wing to fly away. The 15^th of June he was buried in the chancell at Albury, on the north side neer the cancelli. I had much adoe to find the very place where the bones of this learned and good man lay (and 'twas but 16 yeares after his death). When I first ask't his son Ben, he told me that truly the griefe for his father's death was so great, that he did not remember the place—now I should have thought it would have made him remember it the better—but when he had putt on his considering cap (which was never like his father's), he told as aforesaid, with which others did agree. There is not to this day any manner of memorial for him there, which is a great pitty. I have desired Mr. John Evelyn, etc., to speake to our patrone, the duke of Norfolk, to bestowe a decent inscription of marble on him, which will also perpetuate his grace's fame. I asked Ben concerning the report[490] of his father's dyeing a Roman Catholique: he told me that 'twas indeed true that when he was sick some priests came from my lord duke's (then Mr. Henry Howard, of Norfolk) to him to have discoursed with him, in order to his conversion to their church, but his father was then past understanding. Ben was then by, he told me.

His Clavis Mathematica was first dedicated to the lord <Thomas[491]> Howard, earle of Arundel and Surrey, and Lord Marshall of England, anno Domini MDCXXXI, London, apud Thomam Harperum.

His Clavis Mathematica, denuo limata sive potius fabricata was printed by the said Thomas Harper, 1648.

Editio tertia auctior et emendatior was at Oxford, 1652; where Dr. John Wallis, the Savillian professor, corrected the presse. The old gentleman in his Preface to the Reader mentioned with much respect Seth Ward (Savillian professor of Astronomy), Dr. Charles Scarborough, John Wallis, Mr. Christopher Wren, and Mr. Robert Wood.

He writt a stitch't pamphlet about 163(?4) against ... Delamaine.

His first edition of his Circles of Proportion was in 4to, and dedicated to Sir Kenelm Digby, printed.... The second edition was at Oxford, 165-.

He writt a little pamphlett in 8vo, viz. The new artificiall gauging-rod, with the use therof, London, printed by Augustin Matthewes, 1633. Ben, <his son>, gave me a copie of it; but this art is since much improved.

He wrote a little treatise of watchmaking for the use of his son Benjamin, who told me that Mr. Horton of Whitehall, of the Woodyard, haz the true copie of it.

Memorandum:—about 1678 were printed at Oxon at the Theatre some opuscula of his....

I have heard Mr. Hobbes say, and very truely, that with all his great skill in Algebra, he did never adde one proposition to Geometrie: he could bind up a bundle well.

Mr. John Sloper, vicar of Broad Chalke (which is in the gift of King's College, Cambridge) tells me that Mr. Oughtred's father was the pantler of Eaton College.

Memorandum:—there is a booke of lives in folio, by ... Lloyd, and among others this Mr. Oughtred: which see.

Memorandum:—Richard Blackbourne, of London, M.D., hath Mr. W. Oughtred's genealogie of his owne draweing; gett it for Mr. Elias Ashmole.

[492]Worthy Sir,

I made bold lately when I sent my book in a leter to Mr. Wood[493] to nominate you and Mr. Wallis together with him, to whose judgment and discretion I commit all my right and interest for the printing therof at Oxford. I nowe have sent the Epistle, which, though written long since, yett was soe mislayed and mingled with many other papers, that I thought it lost, and light but lately upon it. Therin I make noe unloving mention of your self and Dr. Scarbrough, whose surname I remember not.

I hope neyther of you will take my officiousnesse in evell part. Yett yf anything shall displease, you are intreated of me to alter it or raze it with a blott; but yf in and by your suffrage it maye passe, I would intreat you to supplie the Doctor's surname.

I have another suit, and that is in behalf of Mr. Brookes, late chosen manciple of Wadham Colledg, that you would be pleased to commend him and give him what countenance you can with the Warden of the house. He is a very honest man, well travelled and experienced in the world, and is also an exact workman in his trade of making mathematical instruments in metall.

Sir, you will be pleased to remember my best respects to Mr. Wallis and favourably to pardon this troublesome interruption of him who am,

Your truly loving freind to my power,
William Oughtred.

Aldburie
April 19, 1651.

To my very worthy and loving freind, Mr. Seth Ward, at Wadham Colledg in Oxford, present.