ABSTRACT
Little is known about the reception of North's Essay after its publication in 1677. As previously mentioned, Hooke saw sheets of the Essay at his bookseller's shop, but he did not purchase it, whereas Pepys, who did purchase a copy, attributed authorship to Wallis. 1 To these facts, we may add Roger North's statement that the Essay 'sold well, and in a few years after [1677], it was out of print, and ever since is scarce to be met with, but in private hands'. 2
And we may refer also to his brief remarks on the reception of the Essay in the studies of Edmund Matthews-Francis North's university tutor,3 as well as in the publications of John Wallis and William Holder. It seems that Matthews was one who undertook the experiments called for in the epistolary introduction to the Essay. But all that we know of these experiments is Roger North's statement that Matthews was 'so affected' by the Essay, 'that he made a perpetuall comment upon it; and took much paines by experiments to explain the doctrine of pulses; but these proffers are all mislayd or lost'. 4
I See Chapters 1, p. 28, and 2, p. 69 supra.
