BRIGGS (Henry)

, one of the greatest mathematicians in the 16th and 17th centuries, was born at Warleywood, near Halifax, in Yorkshire, in 1556. From a grammar school in that country he was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, 1579; where after taking both the degrees in arts, he was chosen fellow of his college in 1588. He applied himself chiefly to the study of the mathematics, in which he greatly excelled; in consequence in 1592 he was made examiner and lecturer in that faculty; and soon after, reader of the physic lecture, founded by Dr. Linacer.

Upon the settlement of Gresham College, in London, he was chosen the first professor of geometry there, in 1596. Soon after this, he constructed a table, for finding the latitude, from the variation of the magnetic needle being given. In the year 1609 he contracted an acquaintance with the learned Mr. James Usher, afterwards archbishop of Armagh, which continued many years after by letters, two of Mr. Briggs being still extant in the collection of Usher's letters that were published: in the former of these, dated August 1610, he writes among other things, that he was engaged in the subject of eclipses; and in the latter, dated the 10th of March 1615, that he was wholly taken up and employed about the noble invention of logarithms, which had come out the year before, and in the improvement of which he had afterwards so great a concern. For Briggs immediately set himself to the study and improvement of them; expounding them also to his auditors in his lectures at Gresham college. In these lectures he proposed the alteration of the scale of logarithms, from the hyperbolic form which Napier | had given them, to that in which 1 should be the logarithm of the ratio of 10 to 1; and soon after he wrote to Napier to make the same proposal to himself. In the year 1616 Briggs made a visit to Napier at Edinburgh, to confer with him upon this change; and the next year he did the same also. In these conferences, the alteration was agreed upon accordingly, and upon Briggs's return from his second visit, in 1617, he published the first chiliad, or 1000 of his logarithms. See the Introduction to my Logarithms.

In 1619 he was made the first Savilian professor of geometry; and resigned the professorship of Gresham college the 25th of July 1620. At Oxford he settled himself at Merton college, where he continued a most laborious and studious life, employed partly in the duties of his office as geometry lecturer, and partly in the computation of the logarithms, and in other useful works. In the year 1622 he published a small tract on the “North-west passage to the South Seas, through the continent of Virginia and Hudson's Bay;” the reason of which was probably, that he was then a member of the company trading to Virginia. His next performance was his great and elaborate work, the Arithmetica Logarithmica in folio, printed at London in 1624; a stupendous work for so short a time! containing the logarithms of 30 thousand natural numbers, to 14 places of figures beside the index. Briggs lived also to complete a table of logarithmic sines and tangents for the 100th part of every degree, to 14 places of figures beside the index; with a table of natural sines for the same 100th parts to 15 places, and the tangents and secants for the same to ten places; with the construction of the whole. These tables were printed at Gouda in 1631, under the care of Adrian Vlacq, and published in 1633, with the title of Trigonometria Britannica. In the construction of these two works, on the logarithms of numbers, and of sines and tangents, our author, beside extreme labour and application, manifests the highest powers of genius and invention; as we here for the first time meet with several of the most important discoveries in the mathematics, and what have hitherto been considered as of much later invention; such as the Binomial Theorem; the Differential Method and Construction of Tables by Differences; the Interpolation by Differences; with Angular Sections, and several other ingenious compositions: a particular account of which may be seen in the Introduction to my Mathematical Tables.

This truly great man terminated his useful life the 26 of January 1630, and was buried in the choir of the chapel of Merton College. As to his character, he was not less esteemed for his great probity and other eminent virtues, than for his excellent skill in mathematics. Doctor Smith gives him the character of a man of great probity; easy of access to all; free from arrogance, moroseness, envy, ambition and avarice; a contemner of riches, and contented in his own situation; preferring a studious retirement to all the splendid circumstances of life. The learned Mr. Thomas Gataker, who attended his lectures when he was reader of mathematics at Cambridge, represents him as highly esteemed by all persons skilled in mathematics, both at home and abroad; and says, that desiring him once to give his judgment concerning judicial astrology, his answer was, “that he conceived it to be a mere system of groundless conceits.” Oughtred calls him the mirror of the age, for his excellent skill in geometry. And one of his successors at Gresham college, the learned Dr. Isaac Barrow, in his oration there upon his admission, has drawn his character more fully; celebrating his great abilities, skill, and industry, particularly in perfecting the invention of logarithms, which, without his care and pains, might have continued an imperfect and useless design.

His writings were more important than numerous: some of them were published by other persons: the list of the principal part of them as follows.

1. A Table to find the Height of the Pole; the Magnetical Declination being given. This was published in Mr. Thomas Blundevile's Theoriques of the Seven Planets: London 1602, 4to.

2. Tables for the improvement of Navigation. These consist of, A table of declination of every minute of the ecliptic, in degrees, minutes and seconds: A table of the sun's prosthaphaereses: A table of equations of the sun's ephemerides: A table of the sun's declination: Tables to find the height of the pole in any latitude, from the height of the pole star. These tables are printed in the 2d edition of Edward Wright's treatise, intitled, Certain Errors in Navigation detected and corrected; London 1610, 4to.

3. A description of an Instrumental Table to find the Part Proportional, devised by Mr. Edward Wright. This is subjoined to Napier's table of logarithms, translated into English by Mr. Wright, and after his death published by Briggs, with a preface of his own: Lond. 1616 and 1618, 12mo.

4. Logarithmorum chilias prima. Lond. 1617, 8vo.

5. Lucubrationes & Annotationes in opera posthuma J. Neperi: Edinb. 1619, 4to.

6. Euclidis Elementorum vi libri priores &c. Lond. 1620, folio. This was printed without his name to it.

7. A treatise of the North-west passage to the South Sea &c. By H. B. Lond. 1622, 4to. This was reprinted in Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. 3, p. 852.

8. Arithmetica Logarithmica, &c. Lond. 1624, folio.

9. Trigonometria Britannica, &c. Goudæ 1633, folio.

10. Two letters to archbishop Usher.

11. Mathematica ab antiquis minus cognita.—This is a summary account of the most observable inventions of modern mathematicians, communicated by Mr. Briggs to Dr. George Hakewill, and published by him in his Apologie; Lond. folio.

Beside these publications, Briggs wrote some other pieces, that have not been printed: as,

(1). Commentaries on the Geometry of Peter Ramus.

(2). Duæ Epistolæ ad celeberrimum virum, Chr. Sever. Longomontanum. One of these letters contained some remarks on a treatise of Longomontanus, about squaring the circle; and the other a defence of arithmetical geometry.

(3). Animadversiones Geometricæ: 4to.

(4). De eodem Argumento: 4to.—These two were in the possession of the late Mr. Jones. They both contain a great variety of geometrical propositions, concerning the properties of many figures, with several | arithmetical computations, relating to the circle, angular sections, &c.—The two following were also in possession of Mr. Jones.

(5). A treatise of Common Arithmetic; folio.

(6). A letter to Mr. Clarke of Gravesend, dated 25 Feb. 1606; with which he sends him the description of a ruler, called Bedwell's ruler, with directions how to use it.

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Entry taken from A Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary, by Charles Hutton, 1796.

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BRAHE (Tycho)
BRANCKER
BREACH
BREREWOOD (Edward)
BRIDGE
* BRIGGS (Henry)
BRIGGS (William)
BROUNCKER
BROWN (Sir William)
BULLIALD (Ismael)
BURNING