Brief Lives, Vol. 2

Cyprian Lucar.

[139]Mr. Cyprian Lucar[T] published a very profitable treatise in 4to for young beginners in the Mathematicks, intituled

'Lucar solace, divided into fower bookes, which in part are collected out of diverse authors in diverse languages, and in part devised by Cyprian Lucar, gentleman. Imprinted at London by Richard Field anno Domini 1590.'

It is dedicated 'to the right worshipfull his brother-in-law Maister William Roe, esquier, and alderman of the honorable citie of London.' This dedicatory epistle is a well writ and close stile. He expresseth himselfe short and cleare and to have been a publick-spirited and a good man as well as learned and ingenious. He dates it 'From my house in London the 1 day of May in the yeare of the creation of the world 5552, and in the yeare of our redemption 1590.'

The contents of the four bookes of Lucar Solace:—

'The first book containeth definitions of divers words and terms, names and lengthes of divers English measures, the true difference between an acar of land measured with a pearch of 12 foot, 18 foot, 20 foote, or 24 foote in length, and an acar of land measured with a pearch of 16 foot and an halfe foote in length, names and types of divers geometrical instruments, names and dwelling places of workmen which can make and doe sell such instruments, meanes to discerne whether or no the edge of a ruler is right, and infallible instructions by which an ingenious reader may readily measure upon any smooth table, drummes head, stoole or other superficies measurable lengths, bredthes, heights, and depthes, apply known lengthes, bredthes, heights, and depthes to many good purposes, know recorded heighthes, lengthes, and bredthes of some famous monuments in Sarum, in Westminster and in the honorable citie of London, know the antiquitie of the sayd citie of London, draw the true plat of any place, make a fit scale for any platt or mappe, reduce many plats into one fair mappe, reduce a mappe from a bigge forme to a lesse forme, and from a lesse forme to a bigge forme, and learne to know the commodities and discommodities of places.

[140]'The second book sheweth how an ingenuous person may measure a right-lined distance between any two places described in a mappe, how he may measure the circuite and superficiall content of any described peece of land, how he may find the centre of any polygonon equiangle figure, how he may find the center of any circle, how he may make by a part of the circumference the whole circumference agreeing unto that part, how he may bring any right lined figure into triangles and how he may know what number of angles in a right-lined figure are equall to any certain number of right angles.

'The third book instructeth the reader to make any triangle, square, or long-square, to erect a plumbe line upon any part or point of a line, to divide any circle into divers numbers of equall parts, to make any polygonon equiangle figure, to make an egge-forme figure, to know when a figure is inscribed within another figure or circumscribed about another figure, to inscribe certain rightlined figures within certain other rightlined figures, to circumscribe certain rightlined figures about certain other rightlined figures, to divide a right line into so many equall parts as he will, to tell whether a thing seen afar off doth stand still, goe from him, or come towards him, to draw a line equall to any assigned arch-line or to the whole circumference of any assigned circle or to any assigned part of a circle, to draw a circular line equall to any assigned right line, to separate, lay out, and inclose within a long square, one, two or three acars of land by diverse waies from any peece of ground adjoyning, to change a figure of one forme into an equall figure of another appointed forme, to make a right line angle equall to a right line angle given, to draw a parallel to a right line given, and to cube any assigned sphere.

'The fourth booke teacheth the reader to know fruitfull barren and minerall grounds, growthes ages and solid contents of trees, and where a good air is. It doth also teach the reader to build for the preservation of health, to make a tunnell of a chimney so as no smoak shall annoy him in his house, to fell timber and make sound boords for buildings, to sink a well in due time and in a place where water may be found, and to know whether a new found spring of water will drie up in a hot and dry summer; also it sheweth how water in a shallow well is more wholesome than water in a deep well, how every well ought to be uncovered[141]and often times drawn drie, how the use of water is necessary, how divers sorts of water have divers qualities, how there are divers meanes to trie among many sorts of water which water is best, how great store of water may be thrown out of a new-devised squerte upon any fired house or other thing, how water may be brought in pipes or in gutters within the ground to any appointed sesterne, how the depth of any sea may be found, how the force of running waters which weare away land may be broken; how wet grounds and bogges may be drained, and how by the art taught in these 4 bookes the ingenuous reader may devise new workes, strange engins and instruments not only for private pleasure but also for sundry purposes in the common-wealth.'

Memorandum:—in the XXIII chapter of the third booke of Lucar Solace, in the beginning of the chapter, he quotes the 67 chapter of his booke ☞ intituled Lucar appendix, which I never saw.