Grammelogia IV, One copy in the British Museum, another in the Bodleian
Library, Oxford.[20]
Grammelogia V, One copy in the British Museum.
In Grammelogia I the first three leaves and the last leaf are without
pagination. The first leaf contains the title-page; the second leaf, the
dedication to the King and the preface “To the Reader;” the third leaf, the
description of the Mathematical Ring. Then follow 22 numbered pages.
Counting the unnumbered pages, there are altogether 30 pages in the
pamphlet. Only the first three leaves of this pamphlet are omitted in
Grammelogia IV and V.
In Grammelogia III the Appendix begins with a page numbered 52 and bears
the heading “Conclusion;” it ends with page 68, which contains the same two
poems on the mathematical ring that are given on the last page of
Grammelogia I but differs slightly in the spelling of some of the words.
The 51 pages which must originally have preceded page 52, we have not seen.
The edition containing these we have designated Grammelogia II. The reason
for the omission of these 51 pages can only be conjectured. In Oughtred’s
Epistle (p. 24), it is stated that Delamain had given a copy of the
Grammelogia to Thomas Brown, and that two days later Delamain asked for the
return of the copy, “because he had found some things to be altered
therein” and “rent out all the middle part.” Delamain labored “to recall
all the bookes he had given forth, (which were many) before the sight of
Brownes Lines.” These spiral lines Oughtred claimed that Delamain had
stolen from Brown. The title-page and page 52 are the only parts of the
Appendix, as given in Grammelogia III, that are missing in the Grammelogia
IV and V.
Grammelogia IV answers fully to the description of Delamain’s pamphlet
contained in Oughtred’s Epistle. It was brought out in 1632 or 1633, for
what appears to be the latest part of it contains a reference (page 99) to
the Grammelogia I (1630) as “being now more then two yeares past.”
Moreover, it refers to Oughtred’s Circles of Proportion, 1632, and
Oughtred’s reply in the Epistle was bound in the Circles of Proportion
having the Addition of 1633. For convenience of reference we number the two
title-pages of Grammelogia IV, “page (1)” and “page (2),” as is done by
Oughtred in his Epistle. Grammelogia IV contains, then, 113 pages. The page
numbers which we assign will be placed in parentheses, to distinguish them
from the page numbers which are printed in Grammelogia IV. The pages
(44)-(65) are the same as the pages 1-22, and the pages (68)-(83) are the
same as the pages 53-68. Thus only thirty-eight pages have page numbers
printed on them. The pages (67) and (83) are identical in wording, except
for some printer’s errors; they contain verses in praise of the Ring, and
have near the bottom the word “Finis.” Also, pages (22) and (23) are
together identical in wording with page (113), which is set up in finer
type, containing an advertisement of a part of Grammelogia IV explaining
the mode of graduating the circular rules. There are altogether six parts
of Grammelogia IV which begin or end by an address to the reader, thus: “To
the Reader,” “Courteous Reader,” or “To the courteous and benevolent Reader
. . .,” namely the pages (8), (22), (68), (89), (90), (108). In his Epistle
(page 2), Oughtred characterizes the make up of the book in the following
terms:
In reading it . . . I met with such a patchery and confusion of
disjoynted stuffe, that I was striken with a new wonder, that any man
should be so simple, as to shame himselfe to the world with such a
hotch-potch.
Grammelogia V differs from Grammelogia IV in having only the second
title-page. The first title-page may have been torn off from the copy I
have seen. A second difference is that the page with the printed numeral 22
in Grammelogia IV has after the word “Finis” the following notice:
This instrument is made in Silver, or Brasse for the Pocket, or at any
other bignesse, over against Saint Clements Church without Temple Barre,
by Elias Allen.
This notice occurs also on page 22 of Grammelogia I and III, but is omitted
from page 22 of Grammelogia V.