4. MR. GIFFORD AND MR. BULMER.

Shortly after the Right Honourable Lord Sidmouth was appointed Secretary of State for the Home Department, he very handsomely presented Mr. Gifford with the Paymastership of the Honourable Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, or Men at Àrms,— a situation he enjoyed till the period of his death, of which corps, Mr. Bulmer, his ancient typographer, had long been one of the oldest members. It was the practice of Mr. Gifford, whenever an Exchequer warrant was issued for the payment of the quarterly salaries of the Gentlemen of the Band, to inform its members, by a circular letter, that their salaries were in a course of payment; but on many of those occasions he was wont to depart from his usual routine, and indulge himself in a poetical notice to Mr. Bulmer. These notices were generally written on any blank or broken page he might accidentally find on the proof sheet of Shirley's Dramatic Works which he might be correcting at the instant,-a work he had long * been employed in conducting through the Shakspeare press. From a variety of those momentary effusions of the Satirist, the following have been selected;

" Ad Cl. V. Gul. Bul. Gent. Pens. Epistola Hortatoria.

"O qui, terribili Regem præstare securi
Securum gaudes, Βουλμηρων πιστατε πάντων!
Nummorum (vox aurea) apud me jam stabat acervus
Ingens, officii merces lautissima fidi;

Ad quem, si sapias, alato jam pede curras.
Nam, si quid veri veteres cecinere poetæ,
Ipsæ alas sibi opes faciunt, volitantque repentè.

TRANSLATION.

"An Admonitory Epistle to the Right Worthy Gentleman,
W. Bulmer, Gentleman Pensioner.

"O thou! who safely claim'st the right to stand
Before thy King, with dreaded axe in hand,
My trustiest Bulmer! know, upon my board
A mighty heap of cash (O golden word!)

The work had commenced in 1816. — With respect to Mr. Gifford's intended Shakspeare (before noticed in p. 9) it may be added that so intent was he at one time on this project, that specimen pages bad been prepared by bis printer Mr. Bulmer. The edition was to have been in crown 8vo. with engravings from the designs of Gillray, produced by a new application of aquafortis to copper, which rendered the plates available, in the manner of wood engravings, to the operation of the letterpress. The design of his edition was to give a brief glossarial elucidation of the works of Shakspeare, and to expunge the absurdities which have too frequently been appended to the works of our immortal Bard.

Now lies, for service done, the bounteous meed.
Haste then, in Wisdom's name, and hither speed:
For, if the truth old Poets sing or say,

Riches straight make them wings and fly away!"

"DEAR BULMER,

May 5, 1819.
"Did but the proofs of Shirley's Plays
Return as quick as Quarter-days,

How would my friend Tom Turner* chuckle,
And you give thanks on either knuckle!
But, pardon! I will speed them faster;

Meanwhile, to appease your wrath, my master,
You shall receive (before the others)

Your April salary and your Brother's."

Though your patriot brother

About Sir Francis keep a pother,

And hourly train his floor-cloth rabble
For Hunt and Liberty to squabble;

Yet you are of a better feather

(You could not, sure, be hatched together)
And love your Prince, and take his pay
Without a qualm, on Quarter-day;

While he, who sniffs at kings and nobles,
And counts e'en Pensioners mere baubles,
Although the Salary make him itch,
Pockets it with an ugly twitch.—

But, leaving this-know I can pleasure ye,
Thanks to their Lordships of the Treasury,
With gold enough (unless it irk ye)
To purchase such a chine and turkey
As ne'er a city feast appear'd at,

Nor Coke of Norfolk wagg'd his beard at;

* An assistant in Mr. Bulmer's office.

+ Mr. Gifford's residence was in James-street, Buckingham-gate,

Sept. 1821,

"Dread Sir, whose blood, to Knighthood near,

Is sixpence now an ounce more dear

Than when my summons issued last ;

With cap in hand, I beg to say,

That I have money to defray

The service of the Quarter past."

"To W. BULMER, Esq.

"I, who, like any pea-hen gay,
Cluck'd for my brood on Quarter-day,
And saw them, at the well-known sound,
Come waddling, gobbling, clustering round,
Now, thanks to your pernicious press
That robb'd the Forty, more or less,
Of all their Honour +'-find each note,
Stick like Grim-gribber in my throat.
What imp of that Old Serpent's seed
Urg'd you to this felonious deed?

Say, was it pride?—that He, the Knight,
First of the name, Sir Fenwick hight,
Might shine in his new gloss,' and stand
Sole Honourable in the Band!

Oh evil, evil have you done ;-
My letters now are spit upon;
And though the Forty still repair
To James-street, humbled as they are,
Yet, blank of face and chill of heart,
They come like shadows, so depart!'

And come (for I would fain forget
My private wrongs, dear Bulmeret!)
You, too; but not, as you were wont,
With careless air and open front,

But-lest the Band your steps should mark,-
Wrapt in the blanket of the dark ;'

Or you may witness to your cost,

What wrath can do, when Honour's lost!"

* Mr. Bulmer's elder brother, as the Senior Member of the Band of Gentlemen Pensioners, was knighted on occasion of the Coronation of George the Fourth. He died May 7, 1824, aged 79,

† In Mr. Gifford's first printed summons to the Band, the word Honourable (a distinctive appellation to which the Members of the Band are entitled) had been inadvertently omitted.

40

The Rev. JOHN HELLINS, F. R. S.

The preceding memoirs of a genius of Devonshire will be appropriately followed by some biographical notices of another native of that county, little less remarkable for having risen from very similar obscurity by the efforts of his own abilities and per

severance.

"That celebrated mathematician, the Rev. John Hellins," says Mr. Polwhele in his History of Cornwall," was born in or near North Tawton, of poor but honest parents. I think he learned to write by himself; but, be that as it may, his education at best did not extend beyond the first four rules of arithmetic. By occasionally looking on, he literally stole the art of a cooper, and worked at that business for a livelihood, till about twenty years old. Having in the mean time purchased Emerson, and some other mathematical books, without the help of a master, he made himself well acquainted with algebra, &c. &c. Showing his books one day to a school-master of the vicinity, the latter, on conversing with him, perceived more learning than generally falls to the lot of a maker of pails, and being asked, soon after, whether he knew of any young man fit to teach writing, &c. in a small neighbouring school then vacant, he recommended our cooper. While a teacher at this little seminary, I fancy it was, that he got acquainted with my friend, the Rev. Malachy Hitchins, of St. Hilary *, who introduced him, I believe, into the Royal Observatory at Greenwich. While his nights were engaged at this place in stargazing for Dr. Maskelyne, he was employed by day in studying Latin and Greek, which at length enabled him to get into holy orders. He was for some time Curate of Constantine in Cornwall, and either after or before teacher of mathematics to the chil dren of the late Lord Pomfret +."

* Of whom hereafter, p 44.

† Polwhele's History of Cornwall, vol. V. p. 107.

The first paper by Mr. Hellins in the Philosophical Transactions appeared in 1780*. In 1787 he edited "The Young Algebraist's Companion; in 1788 published a quarto volume of " Mathematical Essays, on several subjects;" and in 1802, in two volumes quarto, "Analytical Institutions, originally written in Italian by Donna Maria Gaetana Agnesi. Translated into English by Professor Colson, Cambridge." He also from 1795 to 1814 occasionally furnished mathematical articles to the British Critic.

* The following is a list of the essays by Mr. Hellins in that publication: "Two Theorems for computing Logarithms," 1780. Abr. xiii. p. 632.—“ A new method of finding the Equal Roots of an Equation by Division," 1782. Ibid. xv. p. 317. —“Dr. Halley's method of computing the Quadrature of the Circle improved; being a transformation of his series for that purpose, to others which converge by the powers of 80," 1794. xvii. 414.—Mr. Jones' Computation of the Hyperbolic Logarithm of 10 compared," &c. 1796, ibid. p. 699. . "A new method of computing the value of a Slowly Converging Series, of which all the terms are affirmative, 1798. xviii. p. 312.-" An improved Solution of a Problem in Physical Astronomy, by which Swiftly Converging Series are obtained, which are useful in computing the perturbations of the Motions of the Earth, Mars, and Venus, by their mutual attraction." ib. p. 408.-" A Second Appendix to the Improved Solution of a Problem in Physical Astronomy," 1800. ibid. p. 599.—“ Of the Rectification of the Conic Sections," 1802. ibid. p. 448.—“ On the Rectification of the Hyperbola, by means of two Ellipses," of which latter treatise, and one on the same subject by Mr. Woodhouse, a discussion written by a very eminent mathematician and professor is printed in the Gentleman's Magazine, vol. LXXXV. i. pp. 18-22. The writer of this remarks that, the distinction between the two authors was very obvious, in respect that "Mr. Woodhouse borrows largely from books; Mr. Hellins takes from his own store. The former delights in gallicisms and is often obscure; the latter is plain and perspicuous."

The most remarkable of these are the following: On Mr. Wales's Method of finding the Longitude, VI. 413; On Bishop Horsley's Mathematical Treatises, vol. XXI. p. 272; On Donna Agnesi's Analytical Institutions, of which he superintended the publication, vol. XXIII. p. 143, vol. XXIV. p. 653, and vol. XXV. p. 141; On Keith's Trigonometry, vol. XXXI. p. 489; On F. Baily's work, on the Doctrine of Interest and Annuities, vol.