DONNA MARIA GAETANA AGNESI, PROFESSOR OF THE MATHEMATICKS AND PHILOSOPHY IN TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BY THE LATE REV. JOHN COLSON, M. A. F. R. S. AND LUCASIAN PROFESSOR OF THE MATHEMATICKS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. NOW FIRST PRINTED, FROM THE TRANSLATOR'S MANUSCRIPT, UNDER THE INSPECTION OF THE REV. JOHN HELLINS, B. D. F. R. S. AND VICAR OF POTTER'S-PURY, IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. VOLUME THE FIRST, CONTAINING THE FIRST BOOK. To which is prefixed, AN INTRODUCTION BY THE TRANSLATOR. LONDON: Printed by Taylor and Wilks, Chancery-lane; AND SOLD BY F. WINGRAVE, IN THE STRAND; F. AND C. RIVINGTON, IN OF OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE. THE Analytical Inftitutions of the very learned Italian Lady, Maria Gaetana Agnefi, Profeffor of the Mathematicks and Philosophy in the University of Bologna, which were published in two Volumes, Quarto, in the year 1748, are well known and juftly valued on the Continent; and there cannot perhaps be a better recommendation of them in this Island, than that they were tranflated into English by that eminent judge of Mathematical Learning, the late Reverend John Colfon, M. A. F. R. S. and Lucafian Profeffor of the Mathematicks in the University of Cambridge. That learned and ingenious man, who had obliged his Country with an English Translation of Sir ISAAC NEWTON'S Fluxions, together with a Comment on that profound work, in the year 1736,—and was well acquainted with what appeared on the fame fubject, in the course of fourteen years afterward, in the writings of those very ingenious men, Emerfon, Mac Laurin, and Simpson, found, after all, the Analytical Inftitutions of Agnes to be fo excellent, that he was at the pains of learning the Italian Language, at an advanced age, for the fole purpose of tranflating that work into English; that the British Youth might have the benefit of it as well as the Youth of Italy. |
