w proof,
which we have never found, that he was so before 1756, the matter is to be
accounted for thus.

Arthur Murphy,[567] the dramatist, was by taste a man of letters, and ended
by being the translator of Tacitus; though many do not know that the two
are one. His friends had tried to make him a man of business; and no doubt
he had been well plied with commercial arithmetic. His first dramatic
performance, the farce of "The Apprentice," produced in 1756, is about an
idle young man who must needs turn actor. Two of the best known books of
the day in arithmetic were those of Cocker and Wingate.[568] Murphy chooses
_Wingate_ to be the name of an old merchant who {309} delights in vulgar
fractions, and _Cocker_ to be his arithmetical catchword--"You read
Shakespeare! get Cocker's Arithmetic! you may buy it for a shilling on any
stall; best book that ever was wrote!" and so on. The farce became very
popular, and, as we believe, was the means of elevating Cocker to his
present pedestal, where Wingate would have been, if his name had had the
droller sound of the two to English ears.

A notoriety of an older day turns up, Major-General Lambert.[569] The
common story is that he was banished to Guernsey, where he passed thirty
years in confinement, rearing and painting flowers. But Baker, in 1678,
represents him as a prisoner at Plymouth, sending equations for solution as
a challenge: probably his place of confinement was varied, and his
occupation also.

[General Lambert was removed to Plymouth, probably about 1668. His daughter
captured the son of the Governor of Guernsey, who therefore probably was
reckoned an unsafe custodier thenceforward; though he assured the king that
he had turned the young couple out of doors, and had never given them a
penny. Great importance was attached to Lambert's safe detention: probably
the remaining republicans looked upon him as to be their next Cromwell, if
such a thing were to be. There were standing orders to shoot him at once on
the first appearance of any enemy before the island. See _Notes and
Queries_, 3d S. iv. 89.]

Collins informs James Gregory that "some of the Royal Academy wrote over to
Mr. Oldenburg, who was desired to impart the same to the Council of the
Royal Society, that the French King was willing to allow pensions to one or
two learned Englishmen, but they never made any answer {310} to such a
proposal." This was written in 1671, and the thing probably happened
severa