THE DIARIAN MISCELLANY: CONSISTING OF All the Useful and Entertaining Parts, both Mathe- LADIES' DIARY, From the beginning of that work in the year 1704, With many additional SOLUTIONS and IMPROVEMENTS. In five Volumes. VOL. I. By CHA. HUTTON, F. R. S. LONDON: Printed for G. ROBINSON and R. BALDWIN in Pater- PREFACE. THE HE late ingenious Mr. Thomas Simpfon, who was one of the worthy compilers of the original Ladies' Diary, fpeaking of the merit of that little book, fays that for upwards of half a century, this fmall performance, fent abroad in the poor drefs of an almanac (and that under a title, not calculated to raise the highest expectations) has contributed more to the ftudy and improvement of the ma thematics, than half the books profeffedly written on the fubject. The most celebrated authors now among us, have contributed to promote the reputation of the Ladies' Diary; and the compiler thinks he may, without any offence to truth, venture to pronounce, that, the mathematical part (at leaft) is, at this time, greatly fuperior to every attempt to imitate it, and not below the notice of the best judges." On this head I fhall not enlarge, as the merit of this little annual performance is too well known and acknowledged, to need any more particular declarations of it in this place. I fhall therefore only employ a few lines, by way of preface, in pointing out the motive for this publication of the diaries collected, with the plan on which it has been completed. The extreme fcarcity of the more early numbers of the diary, with the importance of the many curious particulars of which the whole confifts, had rendered à collection of the whole almost invaluable. And as it had long been found almoft impoffible to collect toge ther any number of complete fets of them, it was therefore earnestly defired that, from fome one entire collection of them, a republication might be made of the most useful and entertaining parts extracted from the whole. In confequence, feveral attempts were at different times made, by fome fpirited friends of the work, to collect a complete fet, and to furnish the public with an edition of fuch extracts. Unluckily however, a 2 |