William Robertson Smith

“ After his death, ‘his library being sold into Little Britain,’ Lilly, the astrologer, tells us, ‘I bought amongs them my choicest books of astronomy.’ Amidst these studies he found time to publish in 1631 ‘A Survey of Tottenham,’ in which the well-known burlesque poem, the ‘Turnament of Tottenham,’ was first published from a manuscript now in the university library at Cambridge. ”

“ For the Arabic, which is much the most important feature in the work, he uses the Koran (in manuscript) , the Arabic versions of the Bible (some of which had been printed) , and the publications of the Italian press—notably Avicenna and Nāsir-ed-Dīn's ‘Euclid.’ The connection between Arabic and mathematics was then very close; astronomers especially looked to the Arabs for valuable aid, as appears in Twells's ‘Life of Pocock,’ and probably enough it was through mathematics and astrology (for he quotes Haly) that Bedwell was first led to Arabic studies. ”