Page:Halliwell Collection of Letters.djvu/30

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LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS.

maximum ut sapientibus cognitum est) tamen spectaculum ineffabile sapientæ præbent et possunt applicari ad probationem omnium occultorum quibus vulgus inexpertum contradicit, et judicat fieri per opera demoniorum, &c.

And thus most humbly desyring your Honour to pardon my boldnesse in writing unto you; and, according unto your accustomed clemencie, to accept in good parte this my presumptuous attempte, which only the love I beare to your vertues hathe moved me unto, my trust is that these thinges shall not be alltogyther unpleasaunt unto your honour, otherwyse occupied in greate affayres bothe in the courte and common wealthe, as was Plato with King Dyonisius, Aristotle with greate Alexander, and Cicero Senator and Consul of Rome.

The eternall God and immortall mover of the greate worlde and the lesse, preserve your Honour in healthe and prosperitie!

From the Folde bysyde Barnet, the first of August 1562.

Most bownde to your honour,
Richarde Eden^[1].

THOMAS DIGGES TO LORD BURGHLEY^[2].

[MS. Lansd. No. 19, Art. 30. Orig.]

14th May, 1574.

Right Honorable,—As in your Lordshippes fframe astronomicall, for ornament the ffigures of the most notable constellations in this our visible hemisphere are pourtrayd, adourned with ther due number of hevenly lights; so, in the tables adjoyninge, are impressed sutche numbers as deliver by methode not vulgare the situations and habite which

↑ Richard Eden was a philosopher of good repute in his time. He translated into English, treatises on navigation by Cortes and Taisner, the former of which was exceedingly popular and went through several editions. He is also the author of a very curious little book entitled, "A Treatyse of the newe India," 1553, 8vo. At the end of this letter he adds the following sentences in Latin:—1. "Tuæ D. addictus, alios non quæro penates." 2. "In secretis et occultis, secretus et occultus esto." This lattter quotation is from Hippocrates.
↑ Thomas Digges ranks among the first English mathematicians of the sixteenth century. Although he made no great addition to science, yet his writings tended more to its cultivation in this country, during the reign of Elizabeth, than, perhaps, all those of other writers on the same subjects put together. The work he alludes to in this letter, if a printed one, is probably an edition of his father's work, entitled "Prognostication Everlasting," one of which was published in 1574 and contains an addition by himself.

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[1] Richard Eden was a philosopher of good repute in his time. He translated into English, treatises on navigation by Cortes and Taisner, the former of which was exceedingly popular and went through several editions. He is also the author of a very curious little book entitled, "A Treatyse of the newe India," 1553, 8vo. At the end of this letter he adds the following sentences in Latin:—1. "Tuæ D. addictus, alios non quæro penates." 2. "In secretis et occultis, secretus et occultus esto." This lattter quotation is from Hippocrates.

[2] Thomas Digges ranks among the first English mathematicians of the sixteenth century. Although he made no great addition to science, yet his writings tended more to its cultivation in this country, during the reign of Elizabeth, than, perhaps, all those of other writers on the same subjects put together. The work he alludes to in this letter, if a printed one, is probably an edition of his father's work, entitled "Prognostication Everlasting," one of which was published in 1574 and contains an addition by himself.

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