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 died in 1749. Jones was originally a teacher, but was presented with a valuable sinecure by the interest of George, second Earl of Macclesfield, the mover of the bill for the change of style in Britain, who died President of the Royal Society. This change of style may perhaps be traced to the union of energies which were brought into concert by the accident of a common teacher: Lord Macclesfield and Lord Chesterfield, the mover and seconder, and Daval, who drew the bill, were pupils of De Moivre. Jones, who was a respectable mathematician though not an inventor, collected the largest mathematical library of his day, and became possessor of the papers of Collins, which contained those of Oughtred and others. Some of these papers passed into the custody of the Royal Society but the bulk: was either bequeathed to, or purchased by, Lord Macclesfield and thus they found their way to Shirburn Castle, where they still remain.

A little before 1836, this collection attracted the attention of a searching inquirer into points of mathematical history, the late Prof. Rigaud, who died in 1839. He examined the whole collection of letters, obtained Lord Macclesfield's consent to their publication, and induced the Oxford Press to bear the expense. It must be particularly remembered that there still remains at Shirburn Castle a valuable mass of non-epistolary manuscripts. So far as we can see, the best chance of a fmlher examination and publication lies in public encouragement of the collection now before us: the Oxford Press might be induced to extend its operations if it were found that the results were really of interest to the literary and scientific world. Rigaud died before the work was completed, and the publication was actually made by one of his sons, S. Jordan Rigaud, who died Bishop of Antigua. But this publication was little noticed, for the reasons given. The completion now published consists of a sufficient table of contents, of the briefest kind, by Prof. De Morgan, and an excellent and an excellent index by the Rev. John Rigaud. The work is now fairly started on its career.

If we were charged to write a volume with the title 'Small things in their connexion with great,' we could not do better than choose the small part of this collection of letters as our basis. The names, as well as the contents, are both great and small: the great names, those which are known to every mathematician who has any infusion of the history of his pursuit, are Briggs, Oughtred, Charles Cavendish, Gascoigne, Seth Ward, Wallis, Hu[y]gens, Collins, William Petty, Hooke, Boyle, Pell, Oldenburg, Brancker, Slusius, Bertit, Bernard, Borelli, Mouton,