(Vol. v., pp. 276. 329.)
This writer will be one instance of the use of such an organ of inquiry
as "N. & Q." MR. CORNEY'S reply to my Query reminds me of Wilson's
_History of Navigation_, with which I have long been acquainted: but I
had quite forgotten, or perhaps never remarked, that this Wilson was
_James_, and _M.D._ Baron Maseres reprinted the _History of Navigation_
in the fourth volume of the _Scriptores Logarithmici_: it is an
elaborate summary, of wide research, and puts the author's learning and
judgment beyond a doubt. Maseres, in his Preface, gives a mention of
Wilson, and, in addition to the facts now brought out, states, in his
own curiously explicit style, that Dr. Pemberton's _Epistola ad Amicum
J. W. de Cotesii inventis_, "was addressed to this Dr. James Wilson, who
was the person meant by the word _Amicum_, with the two letters _J. W._,
which were the initial letters of his name." I happen to possess Brook
Taylor's copy of this _Epistola_ (4to. 1722), and its Supplement (4to.
1723), in which Taylor has written, "E libris Br. Taylor, ex dono eximii
paris amicorum, autoris D. H. Pemberton atque editoris D. J. Wilson."
Thus it is established that the author of the dissertation on the
fluxional controversy appended to Robins's tracts, lived in friendship
with some of the most distinguished parties to that quarrel. It is also
established that he was fully conversant with the mathematics of the
day; for Pemberton's letter, called out by Wilson's own queries, could
have been read by none but a previous reader of Cotes and the highest
fluxionists. As to Wilson's age, he says (Robins's _Math. Tr._, vol. ii.
p. 299.) he was a fellow-student of Pemberton at Paris: the latter was
born in 1694, and the former was probably of nearly the same age. They
were close friends to the end of their lives, and Wilson published
Pemberton's _Course of Chemistry_, delivered at Gresham College, 8vo.
1771, according to Hutton and Watt. These last-named authorities both
attribute to Pemberton himself the dissertation on the fluxional
controversy in Robins's _Tracts_: but it certainly has Wilson's name to
it; or rather, it is said to be by the _publisher_ (which we now call
_editor_) of the volumes. It is very likely that Pemberton gave help:
assuredly he must have been consulted by his intimate friend on facts
the truth of which was within his own knowledge. Accordingly, the
following assertions, made by Wilson, are not to be lightly passed over:
first (which also Robins assumes again and again), that _Newton_ wrote
the anonymous account of the _Commercium Epistolicum_ (_Phil. Trans._,
No. 342.) usually attributed to Keill, which, in Latin, forms the
Preface to the second edition of that work. Secondly, that Newton wrote
the criticism on John Bernoulli's letter at the end of the second
edition. Thirdly, that Newton himself, and not Pemberton, omitted the
celebrated Scholium from the third edition of the _Principia_. Montucla,
in the second edition (1802, vol. iii. p. 108) of his _History of
Mathematics_, gives statements on these points from a private source, to
the effect that the notes of the original edition of the _Comm. Epist._
were Newton's, and that the informant had seen the matter which was
substituted for the Scholium, in Newton's handwriting, among the
proof-sheets preserved by Pemberton. If Wilson were the informant, which
may have been, for Montucla's first edition was published in 1758,
Montucla must have confounded the two editions of the _Comm. Epist._ If
not, it must have been some one who did not draw his account from the
dissertation, in which there is nothing about the proof-sheets.
Montucla, however, has lowered the credit of his informant by making him
assert that the second edition of the _Principia_ was managed by Cotes
and Bentley, without communication with Newton. This, which all the
world knows to be untrue of the book, is true of the prefatory parts;
and Wilson gives an account of Newton's dissatisfaction with those
parts. If Wilson were the informant, Montucla has again misunderstood
him.