English scholar, mathematician, and divine, born in London; a graduate of Cambridge, and fellow of Trinity College; appointed professor of Greek at Cambridge, and soon after Gresham professor of Geometry; subsequently Lucasian professor of Mathematics (in which he had Newton for successor), and master of Trinity, and founder of the library; a man of great intellectual ability and force of character; besides mathematical works, left a "Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy," and a body of sermons remarkable for their vigour of thought and nervousness of expression (1630-1677).