d? This would explain Beaugrand, Beaulieu,
and all the _beaux_. Beaugrand--not only secretary to the king, but
"mathematician" to the Duke of Orleans--I wonder what his "fool" could have
been like, if indeed he kept the offices separate,--would have been in my
list if I had possessed his _Geostatique_, published about 1638.[241] He
makes bodies diminish in weight as they approach the earth, because the
effect of a weight on a lever is less as it approaches the fulcrum.

{123}

SIR MATTHEW HALE.

Remarks upon two late ingenious discourses.... By Dr. Henry More.[242]
London, 1676, 8vo.

In 1673 and 1675, Matthew Hale,[243] then Chief Justice, published two
tracts, an "Essay touching Gravitation," and "Difficiles Nugae" on the
Torricellian experiment. Here are the answers by the learned and voluminous
Henry More. The whole would be useful to any one engaged in research about
ante-Newtonian notions of gravitation.

Observations touching the principles of natural motions; and especially
touching rarefaction and condensation.... By the author of _Difficiles
Nugae_. London, 1677, 8vo.

This is another tract of Chief Justice Hale, published the year after his
death. The reader will remember that _motion_, in old philosophy, meant any
change from state to state: what we now describe as _motion_ was _local
motion_. This is a very philosophical book, about _flux_ and _materia
prima_, _virtus activa_ and _essentialis_, and other fundamentals. I think
Stephen Hales, the author of the "Vegetable Statics," has the writings of
the Chief Justice sometimes attributed to him, which is very puny justice
indeed.[244] Matthew Hale died in 1676, and from his devotion to science it
probably arose that his famous _Pleas of the Crown_[245] and other law
works did not appear until after his death. One of his {124} contemporaries
was the astronomer Thomas Street, whose _Caroline Tables_[246] were several
times printed: another contemporary was his brother judge, Sir Thomas
Street.[247] But of the astronomer absolutely nothing is known: it is very
unlikely that he and the judge were the same person, but there is not a bit
of positive evidence either for or against, so far as can be ascertained.
Halley[248]--no less a person--published two editions of the _Caroline
Tables_, no doubt after the death of the author: strange indeed that
neither Halley nor any one else should leave evidence that Street was born
or died.