NEWTONIAN SCHOOLBOOK
MARTIN, Benjamin.
The Young Student’s Memorial Book, or pocket Library.
London: Printed for J. Noon … 1736.
12mo in sixes, pp. viii, 120, [4, advertisements], with woodcut diagrams and a folding engraved plate of the orders of columns (old repair to verso along folds); engraved plate of scales laid on to lower pastedown as usual; K2 (folded to preserve printed tables) with short marginal tear; withal a very good copy in contemporary calf, a few scuffs, joints splitting at head and foot; contemporary inscription ‘JG’ to front flyleaf and occasional annotations (mostly to the section on interest and annuities).
First and only edition. A self-taught schoolmaster in Chichester, Benjamin Martin (1705-1782) ‘began to write, with the avowed intention of bringing down the price of books, especially for the benefit of those who were trying to educate themselves as he had done’ (Oxford DNB). ‘One of the great popularizers of science in the mid-eighteenth century’ (DSB), Martin is probably best known as an early champion of Newton, and Sections 25-6 here are on ‘Sir Isaac Newton’s Universal Theorem’, and Fluxions.
The Memorial Book covers a wide variety of subjects in the field of mathematics and physics, including practical mechanics as relate to gunnery and architecture; and optics, which would later become his principal interest in his efforts as an instrument-maker.
