STEVENS
293
STEVIN
5 was appointed Bishop of Kisamos in Crete by
aul III, who also made him director of the
atican Library on 27 Oct. of the same year, but
I the latter capacity Steuco did not accomplish
uch (Pastor, "Geschichte Pauls III," Freiburg,
)09, p. 738). In 1547 Paul III sent hira as legate to
le Tridentine Council, which had been transferred
( Bologna, and he died on his way back to Rome,
e was a man of varied talents, well versed in history,
lilosophy, and theology, and had a fair mastery of
reek and Hebrew. His works, chiefly exegetical,
ere edited in three volumes by Ambrogio Morando
'aris, 1578; Venice, 1.591 and 1601).
TmvBOSCHl. Sloria delta Letteratura Italiana. VII. I. 396-JOO; ILLMANN. Gesch. des Idealismtis, HI (Brunswick, 1897), 170-77; URTER, NomencUUoT.
Michael Ott.
Stevens, Corneille. See Belgium.
Stevenson, Joseph, archivist, b. at Berwick-on- wecd, 27 Nov., 1806; d. in London, 8 Feb., 1895. hough his parents were Presbyterians, he was edu- ited at Durham under the historian, James Raine, id afterwards at the University of Glasgow. Com- ,g to London he found work, first among the Govern- rcnt records, then in the British Museum, 1831; later
- married Mary Ann Craig, and gradually gave up
resbytcrianism. The death of his eldest and much- ved son so affected him that he returned to Durham id took Anglican orders. He became librarian at le cathedral (18-11-48), and was' afterwards instituted
- ctor of Leighton Buzzard (1849-63). All this time
3 w.as constantly editing ancient texts: for the Mait- ,nd Club, Glasgow, eight volumes (1833-42); for the nglish Historical Society, five volumes (1838-41); T the Roxburghe Club, four volumes; for the Sur- ges Society, seven volumes, with eight volumes of The Church Historians of England." In 1856 the nglish Government was making plans for dealing ith the national records on a large scale. Stevenson as one of those appointed to report on the subject, id when the Public Record Office was instituted, ?57. he was one of the first editors engaged. He now iited seven volumes for the Rolls Series, seven Dlumes of Calendars, Foreign Series, and two of the ?ottisli Series. Meantime he had been received into le Church, 24 June, 1863, and after his wife died, ^69, he entered the seminary of Oscott, and was or- lined priest by Bishop Ullathorne in 1872. Next Bar he was in Rome searching for documents concern- ig English history from the Vatican archives, be- ig employed by the Brit ish Government to begin the Ties of "Roman Transcripts" for the Record Office; i also WTote many reports for the Historical Manu- iript Commission. In 1S77 he gave up these occu- itions to enter the Society of Jesus, though nearly
- venty-two years of age, but after his novitiate he
itumed again to historical research, and continued IS studies until the end. His chief work of this period as the discovery and publication of Claude Nau's Life of Mary Queen of Scotts" (Edinburgh, 1883). 1 1892 he received the honorary degree of Doctor of aws from the University of St. Andrews. Prolonged terary work, instead of stiffening the mind, left tevenson ever fresh and elastic, the friend of children nd prodigal of kindness to others.
The Month (March, April, 1895); Gillow, BM. Did. Eng. Uh., s. V.
J. H. Pollen.
Stevin, Simon, b. at Bruges in 1.548; d. at I/cyden I 1620. He was for some years book-keeper in a busi- ess house at Antwerp; later he secured employment 1 the administration of the Franc of Bruges. After isiting Pru.ssia, Poland, Sweden, and Norway he took p his resiflence in the Netherlands, where he spent hie rest of his hfe. The Stadtholder Maurice of lassau esteemed him so highly that he studied under
his direction mathematics, .science, and engineering,
rewarding him for his services by making him director
of finances, inspector of dykes of the Low Countries,
and quartermaster-general of the Government. His
was an upright, modest, and inventive mind. His
influence on the development of science was great and
lasting. He began with the publication in 1582 of his
"Tafelen van Interest" (Tables of Interest; Plantin,
Antwerp), thus distributing through the business
world an ea.sy and valuable method of calculation,
still carefully preserved by the wealthy merchants of
the Low Countries. Then came successively : in 1583
the "Problematum geometricorum libri V", a very
original work, somewhat imperfectly reproduced in
subsequent editions of the author's works, the
"Dialektike ofte bewysconst", a treati.se on logic,
re-edited at Rotterdam in 1621, but not found in the
large editions of the author's works, and "De
Thiende", a small pamphlet of thirty-six pages con-
taining the oldest systematic and complete explana-
tion of decimal calculus, both published by Plantin
at Leyden in 1.585. "De Thiende" has often caused
its author to be regarded as the inventor of calculus;
he was indisputablj- the first to bring to light its
great advantages. Stevin translated the pamiihlet
into French and re-edited it the same year under the
title "La Disme", with his Arithmetic published at
Antwerp by Plantin. In 1586 appeared the most
famous of his works, " De Beghinselen der Weeghconst,
De Weeghdaet, De Beghinselen der Waterwichts"
(Antwerp). This was the first edition of his mechanics,
in which he sets forth for the first time several
theorems since then definitely embodied in science;
the hydrostatic paradox; equilibrium of bodies on
inclined planes; the parallelogram of forces, for-
mulated, it is true, under a different enunciation by
constructing a triangle by means of two components
and their results.
Stevin's "Vita poUtica, Het BurgherUck leven", a treatise on the duties of the citizen which is no longer printed in large editions of his works, was published by Raphelengen at Leyden in 1590. It gave rise during the nineteenth century to a long and violent contro- versy. From some pages of this volume the inference has been drawn that when entering the service of Maurice of Nassau Stevin apostatized from the Catholic Church, but this opinion is hardly tenable and has now been abandoned. In 1594 appeared the "Appendice Algebraique", an eight-page pamphlet, the rarest of his works (there is a copy at the Catholic University of Louvain) and one of the most remark- able; in it he gave for the first time his famous solu- tion of equations of the third degree by means of successive approximations. In the same year was published "De Sterctenbouwing", a treatise on fortifications, and in 1.599, " Haven vinding", a treatise on navigation, instructing mariners how to find ports with the aid of the compass. From 1605 to 1608 Stevin re-edited his chief works in two foho volumes entitled " Wisconstige gedachtenissen " (Bou- wenz, Leyden). A Latin translation of them, under the title "Hypomnemata mathematica", was con- fided to Willebrord Snellius; and an incomplete French translation, entitled "Memoires math6- matiques", was the work of Jean Tuning, secretary of the Stadtholder Maurice. These two versions were published at Leyden by Jean Paedts. The "Wisconstige gedachtenissen" and the "Hypomne- mata mathematica" contain several treatises then published for the first time, notably the trigonometry, geography, cosmography, perspective, book-keeping, etc.
In 1617 Wacsberghe published at Rotterdam Stevin's " Legermeting " and "Nieuwc maniere van Stercktebouw door spilsluyseii", of which French translations were published by the same editor in the following year under the titles "Castr»in6tation"
