Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/375

 ‘with the ablest foreign contemporary productions on the subject,’ and that ‘it appears as an oasis in an age deficient in science.’ Recorde follows Scheubel and Stifel. He has nothing on cubic equations, and does not appear to have known of the Italian algebraists (for an analysis see Dict. art. ‘Algebra;’ there is a quotation from the preface, relating to the North-West passage, in  Censura Literaria, 1815, pp. 188–91).

Others of Recorde's writings are: 3. ‘The Pathway to Knowledge, or the first Principles of Geometry,’ &c., in four books, 1551, 1574, 1602 (containing two out of the four parts). In the dedication to the reader (quoted in Anecdotes of Science, p. 113), Recorde claims to be clearing the path for others who might attain to greater fame than himself. He explains solar and lunar eclipses, promises a treatise on cosmography, and gives a description of Euclid, bk. i. prop. iv., a method of working various questions in practical geometry, and a list of astronomical instruments in use. There is also a rough determination of the magnitude of the earth, which is said to be 21,600 miles round. 4. ‘The Castle of Knowledge, a Treatise on Astronomy and the Sphere,’ 1551, 1556, and 1596, with an emblematical title-page, dedicated in English to Queen Mary, and in Latin to Cardinal Pole. He also wrote a medical treatise: 5. ‘The Urinal of Physick’ (also known as the ‘Judicial of Urines’), 1547, 1548, 1558, 1559, 1567, 1574, 1582, 1599, 1651, 1665; a short but methodical treatise with figures and good descriptions (see, Biogr. Medica). A number of other works, none of which are extant, are also assigned to Recorde. Among these are: ‘The Gate of Knowledge,’ 1556, probably on mensuration, and ‘The Treasure of Knowledge,’ 1556, probably on the higher part of astronomy, both of which, in his ‘Castle of Knowledge,’ he says that he wrote; and a translation of Euclid referred to by John Dee ‘in carmine encomiastico’ at the end of Dee's edition of Recorde's ‘Arithmetike.’ ‘The Ancient Description of England and Ireland, with a simple Censure of the same,’ is also ascribed to him. In the preface to the second book of the ‘Pathway’ Recorde states that he intended ‘shortly to set forth’ works on the following subjects, viz. ‘The arte of Measuryng,’ ‘The arte of makyng of Dials,’ and ‘The use of the Globe and the Sphere;’ and that he had ‘other sundrye woorkes partely ended, and partely to bee ended,’ viz. ‘Of the peregrination of man, and the originall of all nations,’ ‘The state of tymes, and mutations of realmes,’ ‘The image of a perfect common welth,’ and ‘Of the wonderfull woorkes and effectes in beastes, plantes, and minerals.’ Bale and Pits credit him with books on all these topics, as well as with others entitled ‘Anatomia Quædam,’ ‘Cosmographiæ isagoge,’ ‘De auriculari confessione,’ and ‘De negotio Eucharistæ’ (cf., Sphere of Manilius; , De Scientiis Mathematicis, 1650).

Most of Recorde's books were printed by Reynold or Reginald Wolfe. He was also employed by John Kyngston to collate the first and third editions of Fabyan's ‘Chronicles,’ and compare it with the history of Geoffrey of Monmouth, in order to produce an improved fourth edition of Fabyan. Recorde's edition was brought out in 1559 (cf., Fabyan, pp. 19, 30, for additions by Recorde).

[Cuningham's Cosmographicall Glasse, 1559; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.; Pits, De Illustr. Angl. Script.; Bale's Script. Brit.; Ames's Typograph. Antiq. ed. Dibdin (under Reynold Wolfe); Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon.; Hallam's Lit. of Europe; De Morgan's Arithm. Books; Peacock's Hist. of Arithm.; Aikin's Biogr. Memoirs of Medicine; Ritson's Bibliogr. Anglo-Poetica; Cambrian Register, ii. 209; Williams's Eminent Welshmen; Knight's Encyclop.; Chalmers's Biogr. Dict.; Poggendorff, Biogr.-lit. Handwörterbuch zur Geschichte der exacten Wissenschaften; Archæologia, xiii. 137–9, 159–62; Edinb. Review, xxii. 89; Mag. of Pop. Science, vol. iv. (J. L. = Halliwell); Notes and Queries, 1st ser. v. 469, 497, 2nd ser. i. 79, 380, x. 162; Brit. Mus. Cat.; Cole's Athenæ Cantabr.; W. H. Black's Bibliogr. Decam.; App. to 1st Report of the Deputy-Keeper of the Public Records, pp. 79–122; Cantor, Geschichte der Mathematik; authorities cited.]  REDDIE, JAMES (1773–1852), legal author, born at Dysart in 1773, was educated at the High School, Edinburgh—where he was contemporary with Henry (afterwards Lord) Brougham—at the university of Edinburgh, and the college of Glasgow. He passed advocate in 1797. After giving promise of high eminence in his profession, he accepted, in 1804, the offices of town clerk, assessor of the magistrates, and presiding judge in the town court of Glasgow. These posts he retained until his death on 5 April 1852. His leisure he devoted to the study of the development of law and legal theory, of which the following works were the fruit: 1. ‘Inquiries, Elementary and Historical, on the Science of Law,’ London, 1840, 8vo. 2. ‘An Historical View of the Law of Maritime Commerce,’ London, 1841, 8vo. 3. ‘Inquiries into International Law,’ London, 1842, 8vo. 4. ‘Researches, Historical