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XXII.—Description of a Pocket-Dial made in 1593 for Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. By John Bruce, Esq. F.S.A.: in a Letter addressed to the possessor of the Dial, Edward Dalton, Esq. LL.D. F.S.A.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

John Bruce
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Extract

The curious article which you have entrusted to me for exhibition to the Society of Antiquaries has at least three claims to the attention of that body ;—1st, as an authentic memorial of a celebrated person; 2nd, as an excellent specimen of a curious description of mathematical and nautical instrument, long superseded in actual practice, but full of interest in the history of the sciences to which it relates; and, 3rd, as a production of a skilful artist in this kind of work whose name has fallen out of remembrance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , 1867 , pp. 343 - 360
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1867

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References

page 343 note a Since this paper was written Dr. Dalton has very liberally presented the Essex Dial as an addition to the national collection of similar instruments preserved in the British Museum.—J.B.

page 345 note a The description of this operation in Curtis or Cortes's Art of Navigation is so quaint that it is worth quoting, although some of it has special reference to the form of his particular instrument :—

“When you desire to know the howre, you shall turne the Index of the lesse rundell, in the which is written Time [this refers to his own plate], to that part of the great rundell where is marked the day in which you desire to know the howre, and directing your face toward the north, you shal make the head toward the height of heaven at the 25 of April [that being the day on which the foremost guard is upon the meridian at 12 at night]. And, seeing in heaven by the hole in the middest the Starre of the North, holding the instrument in such compasse of the face that by the circumference of the greater rundell may be seen the Guard-starre in heaven, you shall turn the horne [the long pointer made in the shape of a horn with the mouth downwards] round about until it fall upon the guards, so that by the two holes of the mouth of the horn [this was a peculiarity in the particular instrument here described] the two Guard-starres may be seene, and by the hole in the middest the North-starre, and all three with one eye; then the right line that goeth from the North to the first guard shall shew in the less rundell the howre that shal be.” (pp. 105, 106.) It is stated in Barlow's Navigator's Supply, that the well-known pilot and navigator Stephen Burrowes procured Curtis's Art of Navigation to be translated into English.

page 348 note a Humphrey Cole has not met with such attention from our biographical writers as a man of so much taste and ingenuity deserved. It appears from a letter of his in the Lansdowne Collection (No. 26, art. 22) that, about 1558, he was appointed by Sir William Cecil to an office in the Mint:—“I was placed in the Tower,” he says, “to serve the Queen in the Mint, to do the services pertaining to the mill, that when Eloy the Frenchman should be taken therefrom by death or otherwise I should enjoy the same.” From the contents of this letter, which is dated 4th December, 1578, it seems probable that he never succeeded to the Frenchman's office. There are several notices of Cole among the State Papers. In 1565 he was one of a proposed body of Commissioners for working mines (Dom. Eliz. vol. xxxvii. No. 30), and in 1578, when Martin Frobisher brought home specimens of ore from America. Humphrey Cole was one of the persons appointed to test their value. (Sainsbury's Colonial Calendar, 1513—1616, pp. 33, 34, 57.)

page 348 note b That is, another instrument invented by Blagrave, and by him so called. It is an improvement upon the cross-staff, and is described by the inventor in a little volume entitled “Baculum Familiare,” published in 1590, 4to.

page 349 note a Blagrave's words are :—“I shall easily bee heard of about maister Treasurer's lodging in the Court, or at Swallowfield by Reading, where I dwell. There dwelleth a verie artificial workeman in Hosier Lane, called Jon. Reade, who can further you, whose helpe I have used about one or two of these staues.” (Baculum Familiare, p. 69.)

page 353 note a Mareschal (bend lozengy) occurs on the garter-plate. It is brought in by Bigod.

page 353 note b Strongbow (six lions) occurs in Devereux's “Lives and Letters.” Strongbow is brought in by Mareschal.

page 356 note a Delamain published a description of it, entitled “Grammelogia, or the Mathematical Ring, extracted from the Logarithms,” 12mo. Lond. [1632], and an account of another instrument invented by him, entitled “The making, description, and use of a small portable instrument for ye Pocket (or according to any magnitude) in forme of a mixt Trapezia, thus [ill], called a Horizontall Quadrant. Composed and produced soly for the benefit and use of such which are studious of mathematicall Practice. Written and delivered by Delamain, student and Teacher of the Mathematickes.” 12mo. Lond. 1632. There are papers relating to Delamain in several volumes of the State Papers.