273
taining such an opinion, we shall just glance at the
arguments adduced by the writers of the two nations
in defence of their respective claims, and not pre-
tending to decide a matter of such obscurity, con-
sider it a sufficient reason why he should be a fit
subject for commemoration in this work, that no
decision can be come to betwixt the claimants. It
will be very clear, where there are doubts as to the
century in which he lived, that he is not mentioned
by any authors who did not exist at least a century
or two later. In an edition of one of his works,
published at Lyons in 1606, it is said, "Patria fuit
quæ nunc Anglia Insula, olim Albion et Brettania
appellata." Although the apparent meaning of this
sentence inclines towards an opinion that our author
was an Englishman, the sentence has an aspect of
considerable ignorance of the divisions of Britain,
and confounds the England of later times with the
Albion or Britannia of the Romans, which included
England and Scotland. Leland and Camden vindi-
cate his English birth on the ground that John of
Halifax in Yorkshire forms a translation (though it
must be admitted not a very apt one) of Joannes de
Sacrobosco. On the other hand Dempster scouts
the theory of Leland with considerable indignation,
maintaining that Halifax is a name of late invention,
and that the mathematician derived his designation
from the monastery of Holywood in Nithsdale, an
establishment of sufficient antiquity to have admitted
him within its walls. M'Kenzie repeats the asser-
tions of Dempster with a few additions, stating that
after having remained for some years in the monas-
tery, he went to Paris, and was admitted a member of
the university there. "Upon the 5th of June, in the
year 1221," Sibbald in his Manuscript History of
Scottish Literature1 asserts, that besides residing in
the monastery of Holywood, he was for some time a
fellow-student of the monks in Dryburgh, and like-
wise mentions, what M'Kenzie has not had the can-
dour to allude to, and Dempster has sternly denied,
that he studied the higher branches of philosophy
and mathematics at the university of Oxford. Pre-
suming Holybush to have been a Scotsman it is not
improbable that such a circumstance as his having
studied at Oxford might have induced his continental
commentators to denominate him an Englishman.
M'Kenzie tells us that he entered the university of
Paris "under the syndic of the Scots nation;" for
this he gives us no authority, and we are inclined not
only to doubt the assertion, but even the circum-
stance that at that early period the Scottish nation
had a vote in the university of Paris, disconnected
with that of England—at all events, the historians
of literature during that period are not in the habit
of mentioning a Scottish nation or syndic, and in-
stead of the faculty of arts being divided, as M'Kenzie
will have it, "into four nations, France, Scotland,
Picardy, and Normandy," it is usually mentioned as
divided into France, Britain, Picardy, and Nor-
mandy. That Holybush was admitted under a
Scottish syndic was not a circumstance to be omitted
by Bulæus, from his elaborate and minute History of
the University of Paris, where the mathematician is
unequivocally described as having been an English-
man. There cannot be any doubt that Holybush
became celebrated at the university for his mathe-
matical labours; that he was constituted professor
of or lecturer on that science; that many of the first
scholars of France came to his school for instruction;
and that if he was not the first professor of the
mathematics in Paris, he was at least the earliest
person to introduce a desire for following that branch
1Hist. Lit. Gentis Scot. MS. Adv. Lib. p. 164.
of science. M'Kenzie states that he died in the year
1256, as appears from his tombstone. The author
of the History of the University of Paris, referring
with better means of knowledge to the same tomb-
stone, which he says was to be seen at the period
when he writes, places the date of his death at the
year 1340. The same well-informed author men-
tions that the high respect paid to his abilities and
integrity prompted the university to honour him
with a public funeral, and many demonstrations of
grief. On the tombstone already referred to was en-
graved an astrolabe, surrounded by the following
inscription:—
"De Sacrobosco qui computista Joannes,
Tempora discrevit, jacet hic a tempore raptus.
Tempora qui sequeris, memor esto quod morieris;
Si miseres, plora, miserans pro me precor ora."
The most celebrated work of Holywood was a
treatise on the Sphere, discussing in the first part the
form, motion, and surface of the earth; in the second
those of the heavenly bodies, and, as was customary
before the more full revival of philosophy, mingling
his mathematics and astronomy with metaphysics and
magic. Although the discoveries displayed in this
work must be of great importance, it is impossible to
give any account of their extent, as the manuscripts
of the author seem to have lain dormant till the end
of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century, when
they were repeatedly published, with the comments
and additions of able mathematicians, who mingled
the discoveries of Holybush with those which had
been made since his death. The earliest edition of
this work appears to have been that published at
Padua in 1475, entitled Francisci Capuani Expositio
Sphæræ Joannis a Sacrobosco. In 1485 appeared
Sphæra cum Theoricis Piirbachii et Disputationibus
Johannis Regiomontani contra Cremonensium Delir-
amenta in Planetarum Theoricas, being a mixture of
the discoveries of Holywood with those of George
Purbach (so called from the name of a town in Ger-
many in which he was bom) and Regiomontanus,
whose real name was Muller, two celebrated astrono-
mers and mathematicians of the 15th century. During
the same year there appears to have been published a
Commentary on Holywood by Cichus Ascolanus. In
1507 appeared an edition for the use of the university
of Paris, with a commentary by John Bonatus, In
1547 an edition was published at Antwerp, with
figures very respectably executed, and without the
name of any commentator. Among his other com-
mentators were Morisanus, Clavius, Vinetus, and
many others of high name, whom it were useless here
to enumerate. Some late authors have said that
Melancthon edited his Computus Ecclestasticus; of
this edition we have not observed a copy in any
library or bibliography, but that great man wrote
a preface to the Sphæra, prefixed to an edition pub-
lished at Paris in 1550. Besides these two works,
Holybush wrote De Algorismo, and De Ratione Anni.
Dempster also mentions a Breviarium Juris, which
either has never existed or is now lost. M'Kenzie
mentions a treatise De Algorismo, and on Ptolemy's
Astrolabe, fragments of which existed in MS. in the
Bodleian Library. In the catalogue of that institu-
tion the former is mentioned, but not the latter,
HOME, SIR EVERARD, Bart. This eminent
surgeon was a descendant of the ancient border
family of that name, and son of Robert Home, Esq.,
of Greenlaw Castle, county of Berwick, by Mary,
daughter of Colonel Hutchinson. Sir Everard was
born in 1756. His father having been an eminent
and successful medical practitioner, he emulated the
paternal example; and studied surgery under the
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