Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/358

 'Plurality of Worlds,' 12mo, London, 1808. 4. 'Malvina, by Madame C—— [i.e.Cottin], second edition,' 4 vols. 12mo, London, 1810. Miss Gunning wrote novels not easily distinguishable from her mother's, though perhaps the conversations, which seldom occupy less than thirty pages, are of more frequent occurrence. They include 1. 'The Packet,' 4 vols. 12mo, London, 1794. 2. 'Lord Fitzhenry,' 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1794. 3. 'The Foresters,' altered from the French, 4 vols. 12mo, London, 1796. 4. 'The Orphans of Snowdon,' 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1797. 5. 'The Gipsey Countess,' 5 vols. 12mo, London, 1799. 6. 'The Village Library,' 18mo, London, 1802. 7. 'The Farmer's Boy,' from the French of Deuray Dumesnil, 4 vols. 12mo, London, 1802. 8. 'Family Stories; or Evenings at my Grandmother's,' &c., 2 vols. 12mo, London, 1802. 9. 'A Sequel to Family Stories,' &c., 12mo, London, 1802. 10. 'The Exile of Erin,' 3 vols. 12mo, London, 1808. 11. 'The Man of Fashion: a Tale of Modern Times,' 2 vols. 12mo, London, 1815. Miss Gunning married Major James Plunkett of Kinnaird, co. Roscommon, in 1803 (Gent. Mag. 1803, pt. ii. p. 1251). She died after a long illness on 20 July 1823, at Melford House, Suffolk (ib. 1823, pt. ii. p. 190).

[A Friendly Letter to the Marquess of Lorne; A Narrative of the Incidents which form the Mystery in the Family of General Gunning; Captain Essex Bowen's Statement of Facts in answer to Mrs. Gunning's Letter; Trial between James Duberly and Major-General Gunning; An Apology for the Life of Major General G——; Baker's Biographia Dramatica, 1812, i. 303; Notes and Queries, 6th ser. vii. 407, viii. 48-9, 253; Reuss's Alphabetical Register of Authors, 1790-1803, pt. i. pp. 428-9 ; [Rivers's] Lit. Memoirs of Living Authors, i. 229-31; Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, p. 278.]  GUNTER, EDMUND (1581–1626), mathematician, born in Hertfordshire in 1581, was son of a Welshman, who formerly lived at Gunterstown, Brecknockshire. He was educated at Westminster School under Busby, and thence was elected in 1599 to Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated 25 Jan. 1599–1600. He became B.A. 12 Dec. 1603 and M.A. 2 July 1606, and, subsequently taking orders, proceeded B.D. 23 Nov. 1615 (Reg. Univ. Oxf., Oxf. Hist. Soc., . ii. 239, iii. 243). In 1615 he was presented to the living of St. George's, Southwark. While resident at Oxford he contributed to ‘Epithalamia; sive lucus Palatini in nuptias … Frederici comitis Palatini … et Elizabethæ,’ &c., 1613.

Gunter's ‘New Projection of the Sphere’ (in Latin) was circulated in manuscript in 1603, and gained for him the friendship of the Earl of Bridgewater, William Oughtred, Henry Briggs, and others. The English edition appeared in 1623. In 1618 he invented a small portable quadrant for more readily finding the hour and azimuth and for other useful astronomical and geometrical purposes, described in the appendix to his ‘Book of the Sector.’ On 6 March 1619 he was elected professor of astronomy in Gresham College. Henry Briggs [q. v.] was his colleague for a year; and their association doubtless led to Gunter's ‘Canon Triangulorum; or, Table of Artificial Sines and Tangents, to a radius of 100,000,000 parts to each minute of the Quadrant,’ 1620. This was the first table of its kind published, and did for sines and tangents what Briggs did for natural numbers. In these tables Gunter applied to navigation and other branches of mathematics his admirable rule ‘The Gunter,’ on which were inscribed the logarithmic lines for numbers, sines, and tangents of arches; and he showed how to take a back observation by the cross-staff, whereby the error arising from the eccentricity of the eye is avoided. Oughtred (Circles of Proportion) says: ‘The honour of the invention of Logarithms, next to the Lord of Marchiston, and our Mr. Briggs, belongeth to Master Gunter, who exposed their numbers upon a straight line. And what does this new instrument (of mine) called “Circle of Proportion” but only bow and reflect Master Gunter's line or rule?’

In 1622 Gunter discovered, by experiments made at the Limehouse, Deptford, the variation or changeable declination of the magnetic needle, his experiments showing that the declination had varied five degrees in forty-two years. Gunter gave a short account in his ‘Cross-Staff,’ bk. ii. ch. v., of this discovery, which seemed so strange that he suspected an error, and dropped his investigations. His professorial successor, Henry Gellibrand [q. v.], confirmed and established Gunter's results, and published them in 1635. Gunter made allowance for the variation when he drew the lines upon the dials in Whitehall Gardens. At the request of Prince Charles he wrote a description of their use, which was published in 1624. These dials were destroyed in 1697. Gunter's admirable rule of proportion, now called the line of numbers (‘Gunter's Line’ and ‘Gunter's Proportion’), and other lines laid down by it were fitted in the scale, which ever since has been called ‘Gunter's Scale.’ A description was given in his ‘Book of the Sector,’ and a more popular account of his ‘Line of Proportion’ was published by William Leybourn shortly afterwards. Gunter also introduced the well-known ‘Gunter's