In Mathematicks he was greater / Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater : / For he, by Geometrick scale, / Could take the size of Pots of Ale ; / Resolve by Signs and Tangents streight, / If Bread or Butter wanted weight; / And wisely tell what hour o’th’ day / The Clock doth strike, by Algebra.
1662, [Samuel Butler], “[The First Part of Hudibras]”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge: University Press, 1905, page 6