and a local committee was formed to accomplish the publication of the work. This was entrusted to the Rev. Peter Whalley, a master at Christ's Hospital. The first volume appeared in 1762, and the first part of the second in 1769; but delay arose in consequence of the death of Sir Thomas Cave, chairman of the committee, and the entire work was not published till 1791, more than seventy years after Bridges's first collection. It bears this title: 'The History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire. Compiled from the manuscript collections of the late learned antiquary, John Bridges, Esq. By the Rev. Peter Whalley, late fellow of St. John's College, Oxford,' 2 vols., Oxford, 1791, folio. Whalley's part in the work was very inadequately performed. He professed, indeed, to have added little of his own, except what he compiled from Wood and Dugdale; and so easy a matter as the continuation of the lists of incumbents and lords of manors was left unattempted. Archdeacon Nares wrote the preface, and Samuel Ayscough compiled the index. The value of these two folio volumes is entirely due to Bridges, and if his papers had been properly arranged he would, in the estimation of his successor, Baker, have equalled Dugdale. A magnificent copy of the work is preserved among the select manuscripts in the British Museum (Addit. MSS. 32118-32122). It is illustrated with numerous sketches, engravings, and additions in print and manuscript. A printed title pasted inside the cover states that 'this copy of Bridges's "History and Antiquities of Northamptonshire" was, at great expense and with untiring perseverance, illustrated by Mr. Thomas Dash of Kettering. It has received numerous additions by his son William Dash, who has had it rebound (1847) in its present extended form of five volumes, and strictly enjoins on the party receiving it that the book be preserved in its entirety, and that no part of it be ever broken up or dispersed.' It was bequeathed by Mr. William Dash to the British Museum, where it was deposited in 1883.
Bridges's collection of books and prints was sold by auction soon after his death. The catalogue of his library was long retained as valuable by curious collectors. A portrait of him, painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller in 1706, was engraved by Vertue in 1726.
[Manuscript Memoir in Dash's copy of the Hist, of Northamptonshire, and other manuscript notes in the same work; Bridges's Northamptonshire, pref., also ii. 221; Brydges's Censura Lit. (1807), iii. 219, 331; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. iii. 521-36, vii. 407, 436; Nichols's Lit. Anecd. i. 94, 161, ii. 61, 105-9, 700, 701, iii. 615, vi. 49, 189, viii. 348, 349, 399, 566, 682-4, ix. 566; Noble's Biog. Hist. of England, ii. 182; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xi. 461, 5th ser. v. 86, 175; Quarterly Review, ci. 3, 4.]
BRIDGES, NOAH (fl. 1661), stenographer and mathematician, was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, and acted as clerk of the parliament which sat in that city in 1643 and 1644. He was created B.C.L. on 17 June 1646, 'being at that time esteemed a most faithful subject to his majesty.' He was in attendance on King Charles I in most of his restraints, particularly at Newcastle and the Isle of Wight (State Papers, Dom., Charles II, vol. xx. art. 126). His majesty granted him the office of clerk of the House of Commons, but the appointment failed to pass the great seal because of the surrender of Oxford. It appears that the king also promised him the post of comptroller, teller, and weigher of the Mint. After the Restoration he vainly endeavoured to obtain the grant of these offices with survivorship to his son Japhet. For several years he kept a school at Putney, where he was living in 1661.
He is the author of:
- 'Vulgar Arithmetique, explayning the Secrets of that Art, after a more exact and easie way than ever,' London, 1653, 12mo. A portrait of the author is prefixed.
- 'Stenographie and Cryptographie: or the Arts of Short and Secret Writing. The first laid down in a method familiar to meane capacities; the second added to convince and cautionate the credulous and the confident …' London, 1659, 16mo. This extremely scarce work is dedicated to Sir Orlando Bridgeman. The address to the reader is thus most curiously dated: 'March 18/59 the first of the four last months of 13 yeares squandered in the Valley of Fortune.' A second edition, which has escaped the notice of bibliographers, appeared with this title: 'Stenography and Cryptography. The Arts of Short and Secret Writing. The second Edition enlarged, with a familiar Method teaching how to cypher and decypher all private Transactions. Wherein are inserted the Keys by which the Lines of Text-Writing affixed to those Cyphers are folded and unfolded,' London, 1662.
- 'Lux Mercatoria, Arithmetick Natural and Decimal …' London, 1661, 8vo. With a fine portrait of the author, engraved by Faithorne. This portrait was re-engraved as Milton, for Duroveray's edition of 'Paradise Lost.'
