name of the Prophet, figs!" "Having,
by the sacred influence of divine Providence,
been instrumental to benefit of many
by the useful arts of writing and engraving,
now, with the same wonted alacrity, I cast
this my arithmetical mite into the public
treasury, beseeching Almighty God to
grant the like blessing as on my former
labours." He then proceeds to state that
he had long been desired by his friends to
publish, "who, in a pleasing freedom,
have signified to me that they expected it
would prove extraordinary." The work is
presently stated to be addressed,

I. "To the honored merchant: knowing
that as merchandise is the life of the weal–
public, so practical arithmetic is the soul
of merchandise."

II. "For excellent professors, whose
understandings soar to the sublimity of the
theory and practice of this most noble
science, that they may employ this tractate
as a monitor to instruct their young
tyroes."

III. "For you, the ingenious offspring
of happy parents, who will willingly pay
the full price of industry and exercise for
those arts and choice accomplishments
which may contribute to the felicity of
your future state: for you, I say, ingenious
practitioners, was this work composed,
which may prove the pleasure of
your youth and the glory of your age."

Imagine a schoolboy cherishing a treatise
on arithmetic as the delight of his
youth, and the glory of his maturer years!
The last persons to whom the work is
addressed are "the pretended numerists
of this vapouring age, who are more
disingeniously witty to propound unnecessary
questions, than ingeniously judicious to
solve such as are necessary. By studying
this, they may become such artists as
they now only seem to be. The rules are
grounded on verity; the problems are well
weighed. Therefore, now, Zoylus and
Momus, lay you down and die." The book
concludes with "Laus Deo soli."

The first edition was issued in 1677;
the fourth in 1682; the thirty–seventh in
1720; and in the year 1758, this work
actually reached a fifty–fifth edition. It
was said of Socrates that he was the first
who brought down philosophy from heaven
to earth. The biographers of Cocker
assert that he was the first who reduced
arithmetic from an abstract science, and
made it purely mechanical. His book
was the first which excluded all demonstration
and reasoning, and confined itself
to commercial questions only. This was,
doubtless, the secret of its wide circulation.
His work forms the basis of most of the
arithmetical treatises that have appeared
in more recent times.

The rules of the method of modern
arithmetical works may still in a certain sense
be said to be "according to Cocker." Perhaps
this fact may plead in at least partial
justification of the extravagant eulogy
which he thus pronounces upon his own
works:

Let Zoylus carp, let Momus bark; let all
Their vast retinue spit their spleen and gall,
While sun and moon the day and night command,
These works, the author's monument, shall stand.
These shall be used in schools from age to age,
Till all our arts, and skill, and time shall be
Swallowed in immence eternitie.

Farewell to thee, great and illustrious
practitioner! Even at the risk that Ben
Jonson's majestic ghost may rise and walk
the earth in horror at our presumption,
we venture to retain the title conferred
upon thee by admiring contemporaries:
a title, in the propriety of which thou
would'st thyself have most heartily
concurred.

O rare Ned Cocker!

GREEK BRIGANDS.

THE present King of Greece may claim
some pity for the legacies left him by his
predecessor. Ten years ago, M. Edmond
About told us, in "La Grèce Contemporaine,
"that King Otho did not blush to
have about his person, individuals of evil
repute and suspected of brigandage. The
Grivas, who were in high favour for years,
directed in the north certain bands of fearless
and devoted men. Moreover, brigandage
in Greece is not what we might suppose
it to be. It is a source of illicit gain
for a number of petty robbers, who combine
in gangs of thirty or forty to empty
the pockets of a trembling traveller, or of a
few country people returning from market.
But for people of talent, for superior
minds, it is a political weapon of the greatest
efficacy.

Was it wished to upset a ministry, in
Otho's time? The opposition organised a
band; they burned twenty or thirty villages,
in Bæotia or Phthiotis, and that without
stirring a step from Athens. As soon as
they knew the mischief was done, they
mounted the tribune, and shouted: "How
long, Athenians, will you bear an incapable
ministry, who allow villages to be burnt!"
and so on. The government, on the other
hand, instead of pursuing the brigands and