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English almanacs and the “newastronomy”Marjorie Nicolson Ph.D. Litt.D. aa Smith College, Northampton, MassachusettsVersion of record first published: 02 Jun 2006.

To cite this article: Marjorie Nicolson Ph.D. Litt.D. (1939): English almanacs and the “newastronomy”, Annals of Science, 4:1, 1-33

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A N N A L S OF SCIENCE A Q U A R T E R L Y R E V I E W OF THE HISTORY OF

SCIENCE S I N C E THE REN2~ISSANCE

V'OL. 4 J A N U A R Y 15, 1939 No. 1

ENGLISH ALMANACS AND THE " N E W ASTRONOMY "

By MARJOI~IE NICOLSO~, Ph.D., Litt.D.,

Dean and Professor of English, Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts.

OF all forms of popular literature almanacs, one might suspect, would be the last to show the influence of that " new astronomy " which threatened the existence of astrologers. Yet no study of the influence of astronomy upon the popular mind can be complete that does not seek to determine how far the new ideas were discussed in those little volumes familiar to every household 1. ~¥hether the editors of the almanacs agreed or disagreed with the conclusions of scientists is less important than whether they discussed the new discoveries and hypotheses, and thus carried word of them to laymen who, if they read nothing else, read almanacs. Apart from the possibility that almanacs may have aided in the dissemination of the new science, a s tudy of these volumes over a period of years may serve to determine the force of the impact

This s tudy , one of a series in which I h a v e been t r ea t ing va r ious a spec t s of t he effect o f t he " new science " u p o n popu la r imagina t ion , is based u p o n t h e collection o f a l m a n a c s in t h e H u n t i n g b o n L i b r a ry a n d in t h e Br i t i sh M u s e u m . Since b o t h collections a re weak in ce r ta in p e r i o d s - - n o t a b l y t h a t f rom 1635 to 1645 - - I h a v e s u p p l e m e n t e d t h e m b y vo lumes in t he Wide ne r Library , t h e Yale U n i v e r s i t y L i b r a r y and t he New York Publ ic L ib ra ry . Whi l e I do no t p r e t end to have r ead all t h e a l m a n a c s pub l i shed dur ing t he s e v e n t e e n t h cen tu ry , I h a v e r ead all avai lable n u m b e r s o f t hose t h a t were pub l i shed over a per iod o f years , t oge the r wi th m a n y t h a t a p p e a r e d sporadical ly. Since i t was no t t he c u s t o m of p r in t e r s to pag ina t e a l m a n a c s I h a v e n o t a t t e m p t e d to give page references. Mos t o f t h e quo ta t i ons will be f ound e i ther in t he Prefaces or in E s s a y s a p p e n d e d to the ca lendars a n d prognos t ica t ions . I n m o s t cases I h a v e referred to a g iven a l m a n a c mere ly by t h e n a m e of i ts compiler , s ince the t i t les were usua l ly Almanack, New Almanact¢, or New AlmanaJc and Prognostication. W h e n e v e r a t i t le differs f rom one of t hese s t a n d a r d fo rms I h a v e endeavoured to indica te it.

Ann. of Sci.--Vol. 4, No. !, B

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2 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

of astronomy upon astrology, and permit us to determine an important question to which hitherto the answer has perforce been only conjectural : When did popular astrology begin to break down, and to what extent did the astrologers find it necessary to adjust their prognostications to a new celestial philosophy ? In this s tudy I shall present certain conclusions based upon a s tudy of some eight hundred almanacs published between 1600 and 1710--beginning a decade before the announcement of the dis- coveries of Galileo, and concluding exactly a century after the publication of the Sidereus Nuncius 2.

Io

The accession of James I marked a change in the publication of English almanacs, since the monopoly of printing these pamphlets which had been held from 1571 between Richard Watkins and James Roberts came to an end at the death of Watkins in 1599 a. In 1603 James granted a monopoly to the Stationers' Company to publish almanacs ; but the encroachment upon that prerogative by the booksellers of the University of Cambridge was so persistent that a compromise was effected, and a series of almanacs emanated regularly from the Cambridge presses 4. The number of almanac-makers increased steadily during the seventeenth century. The Short-Title Catalogue lists sixty-nine such writers between 1600-1640 5, and the number is much greater in the latter part of the century. Many of the publications were sporadic ; new names appear and disappear. Other almanacs, however, continued to appear for many years, even throughout the century, descending from father to son 8, or from master to disciple 7, sometimes under the same name, sometimes with a change of title. On the whole, the general character of each almanac remained standard, making its appeal to a particular group.

Since this article was originally wr i t t en an excellent br ief s tudy o f a lmanacs in the ear ly years of the seven teen th century has appeared in Francis R. Johnson ' s Astronomical Thought in Rcn, alssance England (Baltimore, 1937). I n view of this t r e a t m e n t I have compressed the sections o f this s tudy dealing wi th t he same period, and omi t ted quota t ions given by Johnson , wi th whose conclusions I a m for the mos t p a r t in agreement .

a Of. Eustaco F . B o s a n q u e t , " Engl ish Seventeenth-Century Almanacs ", in T~'ansactions of the Bibliographical Society (The Library), 1930, 10 (n, s.), 361-97.

a The Oxford booksellers did no t p r in t a lmanacs unti l 1632. Will iam Lilly, in Mr. William Lillys History of His Life and Times (2nd edn., London,

1715, pp. 24 ft.), says of t he year 1633 : " A s t r o l o g y in this Time . . . was ve ry rare in London, few professing it t h a t unders tood any th ing thereof ". H e ment ions eight astro- logers of the period, th ree o f whom only, I find, were a lmanac-makers .

6 Cf., for example, Culpeper Revived, which was carried on by Nathanie l Culpeper f rom Nicholas Culpeper.

7 Will iam Lilly's Mertini Anglicl Ephemeris, one of t he mos t famous almanacs of t he century, was continued, af ter Lilly 's death , by his s tuden t and disciple, H e n r y Coley, as Merlinus Angllcu~ Junior.

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English Almanacs and the "New Astronomy " 3

Thus there were almanacs for Anglicans, for Catholics, for Nonconformists, for shepherds, chapmen, farmers, gardeners, travellers, for gen t l emen , - later, even for ladies. During the first half of the century the majori ty of almanacs were intended for simple people, as George Gilden implies in the preface to his almanac for 1624 : "Courteous Reader, seeing tha t all our annual Almanackes are commonly published for the use and behoofe of the common people: I have held it best for their better underst~ding to be as plaine therein as possibly I could ". By more sophisticated readers these early almanacs were consulted chiefly as calendars s. But in this, as in many other ways, a significant change comes over the character of English almanacs during the second half of the century.

In the earlier period the compilers of almanacs were, on the whole, men of little learning except in the art of astrology. While most of them, who made up by bombast for lack of learning, boasted loudly of their accomplishments, and called themselves by titles as arrogant as William Lilly's, " the most prodigious man of these Times " 9, others constantly apologized for their limitations in terms similar to those in another of the almanacs of the same vacillating Lilly : " Many will despise this Work for my meannesse, and want of education, being my self no Collegian of either University " 10. Before 1640, Arthur Hopton and Thomas Bretnor are among the few compilers whose almanacs arrest the modern reader, and lead to a further study of the men themselves. Hoptonimplies tha t to him the making of almanacs was a form of relaxation from more serious studies. " So soone as my thoughts a little ceased contemplating with the most noble Sciences ", he wrote in his Almanack and Progno- stication for 1611, he wandered " for recreation in this lower region of invention ". Later in the century, however, it is not uncommon to find men of intelligence and learning turning to almanac-making. For example, Joshua Childrey n obviously published his occasional almanacs as a means of popularizing his great enthusiasm for Bacon and for Galileo. Finding that his conclusions in a serious work, the Indago Astrologica r),,

8 I n s u c h collections as those in t h e H u n t i n g t o n a n d t he Br i t i sh M u s e u m a | m a n a c s f rom t h e l ibraries o f " g e n t l e m e n " are u sua l ly to be found, beaut i fu l ly bound , in series of f rom six to twelve. I nd iv idua l copies o f a l m a n a c s are rarer , s ince, like ca lendars to -day , m o s t of t h e m were d iscarded a t t h e end of t h e year .

Merl in i Anglici Ephemeris, London , 1653. lo Englands Propheticall Merline, London , 1644. 1~ Chi ldrey 's chief work, well k n o w n to s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n t u r y scholars , was t he Bri tannia

Baconica : or the natural rarities of England and Wales . . . historicaUy related, according to the precepts of Lord Bacon, etc., London , 1660, 1661, 1662.

12 Indago As~ologica, or, a brief and modest Enqu i ry into some pr inc ipal points of Astrology, London , 1652. As late as 1695 J o h n Gadbury , in his Ephemeris, discusses th i s work a t length , a n d gives a rdsumd of t h e pr inc ipal a r g u m e n t s .

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4 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

were not so widely known as he desired, he published for the next few years an almanac, Syzygiasticon Instauratum, the essays in which were clearly designed as propaganda. At first sight it seems ironical that, when astrology was breaking down, the art of astrology should have been taken up by men of more learning than the early astrologers. Yet this apparent contradiction is to be explained by the change tha t came over the character of almanacs during the seventeenth century, which caused the appeal of many to a much more sophisticated audience who read, rather than merely consulted. As will be seen, many of the later almanacs cease to be almanacs in the conventional sense, and play their part in the development of periodical literature which was so important in this period.

The majority of almanacs before 1640 pretended to be no more than they were--handbooks of general reference. In addition to the customary calendars and tables of prognostication, they offer little other information than the dates of English fairs, the times of tides, the distances between towns, values of foreign money, standard weights and measures. Occasionally an almanac departed slightly from the conventional pattern by including such " features " as simple legal information, forms for wills and bequests, acquittance, bills of exchange, indentures for binding apprentices. Many, of course, because of the close association between astrology and medicine, include instruction for the diagnosis and treatment of common diseases in man and beast, though, thanks to ~he growth of medicine in the seventeenth century, this, too, tends to break down, with the result that Partridge's almanacs are among the last to devote much space to such information. Philip Bellerson, in his Almanacke for 1624, expressed the general opinion of the day when he wrote : " But now adayes the very name of an Almanack doth so forestall a mans good opinion, with a preiudieate conceit of the bareness of the mat ter contained therein, that no man now will seeme so much to wrong his iudgement, as once to looke upon i t "

After 1640, however, and particularly after 1660, many of the almanacs are mines of valuable information to both the political and the intellectual historian 1~. One such source of information is to be found in the

la Since I h a v e learned b y persona l experience the vasb a m o u n t of waste effort in any s t u d y of a l m a n a c s o f t h e s e v e n t e e n t h cen tu ry , I offer, for the benefit of other students, ~he following classif icat ion o f t h e s t a n d a r d a l m a n a c s o f t h e t ime. I t shou ld be understood that I a m inc luding on ly a l m a n a c s t h a t a p p e a r e d over a series of years.

A. T h e following are pu re ly convent ional , and offer practically no material to either t h e poli t ical or t h e in te l lec tual h i s to r i an • Alles t ree ; A n d r e w s ; B o w k e r ; B r o w n e ; Chamber l a ine ; City and Country Chapman's Almanack ; Cookson ; D a d e ; Dav i s ; F l y ; 1%wlo ; London Almanack ; Neuo ; P o n d ; _Poor Robin ; R ive r s ; Rose ; R u d s t o n ; Swallow ; Swan ; T a n n e r ; Tr igge ; T u m o r ; V a u x ; W h i t e ; Woodhouse,

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English Almanacs and the "New Astronomy " 5

"chronologies ", which became so popular that a number of standard almanacs included them for years. In the earlier period these chrono- logies, when they had appeared, had been largely conventional; beginning at the accepted date of the creation of the world, they traced the history of mankind according to orthodox belief. But, as time went on, the compilers came to show less interest in the remote past, more in the history of their own time. Of all these chronologies those in George Wharton's almanacs are most interesting to the political historian, ibr they relate in extraordinary detail--sometimes even day by day--occurrences of the troubled years 1658-66. Other compilers are less interested in history than in theories of cosmic philosophy, and their chronologies, some of which will be discussed later, afford a valuable source of con- temporary opinion upon comets, eclipses, novtv, and strange appearances in the heavens.

Another source of general information is to be found in the occasional advertisements appended to the almanacs. Only gradually did the English people become aware of this valuable opportunity for making the public conscious of their wares. In the earlier almanacs the advertisements are usually limited to offers on the part of the editors themselves of instruction in the art of astrology, or occasionally in various branches of the " mathematicks ". Joseph Chamberlaine's Prognostica- tion for 1627 proposes instruction in " t he use of the globes both Coelestiall

B. The Catholick Almanaclc, The Protestant Almanack, The New Protestant AImanaclc, A n Episcopal Almanack, and the Scripture Kalendar, as their titles imply, occasionally contain material interesting to the student of the religious controversies of the time.

C. The most complete " chronologies " of the sort referred to in the paragraph above are to be found in the various almanacs published by George Wharton, variously called Wharton's Almunack, Hemeroscopeion, and No Merlinc nor Mercury. These are of great interest, particularly during the period immediately preceding and following the Restoration. So far as I can learn, they are not listed in historical bibliographies of the period. Samuel Perkins's New Almanact'~ and Arthur Sofford's 1Vow Almanaclc also contain unusually full chronologies, though they are less con- cerned with political events than are the Wharton almanacs.

D. The most valuable almanacs to the student of intellectual history are the followlng : William Andrews, News from the Stars ; John Booker, O~'PANOOEgPIA ; or Coelestiall Observations, and Telescopium Uranicum ; Thomas Bretnor, New Almanack and Prognostication ; Joshua Childrey, Syzygiasticon Instauratum (one number of which is listed as by Richard Fitzsmith) ; Nicholas Culpeper, Ephemeris (continued by Nathaniel Culpeper as Culpeper Revived); John Gadbury, "ECNMEPIE ; Arthur Hopton, New A ~ a n a c k and PrOgnOst~eatio~ and No president but a plain Progno- sticatio• ; William Lilly, Merlini Anglici Ephemeris (continued by I-Ienry Coley as Merlinus Anglicua Junior); Nathaniel blye, New Atmanack ; George Parker, Merlinus Anglicanus ; Samuel Perkins, 1Vew Almanack and Prognostication* ; Philip Ranger, Prognostication ; Samuel Perkins, New Almanack and Prognostication; Richard Saundors, Apollo Anglicanws ; Arthur Sofford, New Almanacke and PrOgnostication; George Wharton, Almaz~ack, Hemerescopeion, 1Vo Merline nor Mercury ; Vincent Wing, 'OA~MIIIA A~MATA.

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6 Proibssor Marjorie Nicolson on

and Terrestr ial l" . John Booker's Coelestiall Observations for 1653, and William Lilly's Merlini Anglici Ephemeris for 1656 both contain advertisements of Moxon's globes, which " do far exceed either those of Hondius making or anything else made hitherto in any par t of Europe " James Bowker, in his Almanaclc for 1681, declares :

"There are lately published two Coelestial Hemispheres upon the Plain of the Equifloctial, into a Circle of two Foot and a half Diameter . . . having for the Soutern followed the Observations of Mr. Edmund Halley, mad'e at St. Hellena in the year 1677. . . And hath filled up all the Corners of the same with such other Projections as are most instructive for the understanding the Principles of Astronomy, to wit, the Copernican System.. ." Together with the apparent Faces of the Moon, as seen through a Telescope"

Growing interest in the telescope and microscope is reflected in both advertisements and texts of the almanacs. The earliest reference to any perspective instrument is found in Arthur Hopton, who mentions various instruments in his almanacs, and in his Speculum Topographicum in 1611, in a vigorous defence of the " moderns ", describes a process " To make a Glasse whereby to discerne any small thing, as to reade a writ ten letter a quarter or halfe a mile o f f " 14. Nathaniel Nye, in his New Almanacke for 1643, discusses at some length the telescopic discoveries made by " Galileus Mathematician to the Duke of Medicus a prineipall furtherer of the Perspective glasses ". In the second half of the century references to the telescope are common, as in all the popular literature of the day. Microscopes are not advertised in almanacs until 1690, from which period appear regularly the notices of John Yarwell, one of the chief glass- makers of the day. His advertisement in several of the almanacs for 1691 offers telescopes and microscopes, both double and single. Ten years later, in the London Almanack for 1712, he offers " microscopes single and double, of the newest Mode, and most convenient for the Pocket . . . approved of by the Royal Society ". In the same year, in De Motu Stellarum, appears his first advertisement of the double microscope for observation of the circulation of the blood in the tails of fishes.

The most important source of information for the intellectual historian, however, is to be found in the prefaces and essays which are gradually introduced into almanacs by various compilers. Philip Bellerson, in his Almanacl~ for 1624, is the first to suggest tha t even almanac-makers were following a custom common in the day : " Courteous and friendly Reader, use hath now almost brought it to such a custome, tha t not so much as an Almanacke can passe the Presse without a Preface ". Nevertheless, in spite of Bellerson's statement, prefaces in almanacs are not common

14 Speculum Topographlcum : Or The Topographical Glasse. With Many Rules of Geometry, Astronomy, Topography, perspective, and Hydrography. Newly set forth by Arthur Hopton Gentleman, London, 1611, pp. 182-3.

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English Almanac8 and the " N e w Astronomy " 7

before 1640, and the essays which appear are usually conventional defences of astrology. But in the latter part of the century both prefaces and essays on subjects of general interest are common. Indeed, the whole character of almanacs changes after 1640. They are expanded both in size and scope ; they appeal to an obviously wider public. Books are advert ised; poetry is quoted; compilers engage in protracted debates with one another, sometimes concerning astrological predictions, sometimes upon political subjects, again upon astronomical hypotheses. One principal reason for the change is undoubtedly to be found in the Civil War. in the period following 1642 almanacs become polemical; the compilers, like many others of the time, engage in propaganda of offence and defence ; the habit once established continued in some degree throughout the period of the Commonwealth. Again, in 1660 the almanacs were important vehicles of propaganda, and from this time ~brth the best of them depart from older conventional models and gradually establish original patterns of their own.

With but a few exceptions, which will be discussed, the almanacs before 1640 carry on a long-established tradition in both form and content. There is little awareness of the immediate past, almost none of the present. Even the " predictions " are usually vague rather than specific. Doom hung over England, and, indeed, over Europe ; tails of comets inclined towards many kingdoms ; the stars in their courses clearly fought against men. Fearful as were the prophecies, they were as a rule no more specific than the dire one that :

" Petticoats shall in Pulpits preach And women be allowed to teach" 15

During the period of the Civil War, however, astrologers, whose loyalty to par ty was more powerful than their loyalty to their art, became so very specific in their prognostications of battle, murder, and particularly of sudden death, that John Gadbury was not the only almanac-maker who protested: " I like not, but seriously disown, and protest against such Astrologers, tha t cannot make an Almanack, or other trivial Prognostication, without the killing of-an Emperor, or a King or twv'; together with the Pope, and half a dozen of Bishops and Cardinals " Occasionally one must grant that an a lmanac--by the law of statistical averages--made a specific prediction that proved correct, though it is a remarkable thing that no single one of the many almanacs of the time foretold either the Great Fire or the Great Plague--an error in calculation that caused much embarrassment to the astrologers in the following years.

15 A prophecy for 1640, quoted in William Lilly, A Collection of Ancient and Modernize Prophecies Concerning these present times, with Modes~ Observations thereon, London, 1645.

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8 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

The early compilers were, on the whole, content to go back to tradition and to author i ty ; Aristotle and Ptolemy were still their gods. Only occasionally does one find the name of one of the great contemporaries who were making intellectual history. Arthur Hopton and Thomas Bretnor are among the outstanding exceptions. They alone among the early compilers mention important contemporary discoveries. Hopton spoke more than once o f " two famous Doctors, that is Doctor G i l b e r t . . . And now this last year 1613 Doctor Ridly, Medicus eruditus " is Bretnor's IVewe Almanacke for 1618 recommends Ridley's Magneticall Animadversions as well as several other contemporary works. Bretnor, indeed, was not only the foremost almanac-maker of the time, as is clear from the references to him in such popular literature as the plays of Ben Jonson and Middleton 17 but he was also a man of unquestioned ability in science and mathematics, whose accomplishments were treated with respect by his scientific contemporaries. Arthur Hopton defends the new instruments against the old logic, and, in spite of his refusal to accept Copernicanism, shows so clear an awareness of movements in contemporary thought as to make one surmise that his sudden and untimely death in 1614 is removed a figure of real importance in the spread of the new ideas.

After 1640, however, the compilers of almanacs are as a group much more aware of the contemporary background. Bacon's name appears frequently, as it does not in almanacs before that da te ; Baconianism is clearly reflected by many of the compilers. Bishop Wilkins is fre- quently quoted, not only ibr those aspects of his work that spurred romance, but also for his conclusions that " the earth may be a planet " and for his advocacy of Galileo 19. Descartes is sometimes mentioned, though the almanac-makers on the whole knew Continental ideas less than English. In the later period Boyle, Halley, and Newton are often quoted as authorities, and their works known not long after publication 20. Many of the later writers, indeed, seem to pride themselves on discussing new books and new theories as soon as possible after they had been made public. Indeed, so different are the later .almanacs from the earlier that, except for the inclusion of conventional calendars and tables, one

16 1Vewe Almanacke and Prognostication, London , 1614. 17 Cf. Johnson , Astronomical Thought, ed. cir., pp . 250-3, for fuller evidence. is H i s dea th is m e n t i o n e d by T h o m a s Bre tno r in his a l m a n a c for 1615. Cf. J o h n s o n ,

op. cir., pp. 253-6, for f u r t he r i n fo rma t ion in regard to H o p t o n . 19 Wi lk ins will be more ful ly d iscussed below. 20 Whi le references to N e w t o n are no t u n c o m m o n dur ing his l ifetime, I h a v e been

in te res ted to see t h a t in t h e a l manacs , a s in o the r fo rms of popu la r l i tera ture , m a r k e d awarenes s o f his g rea tness appea r s on ly a f te r h i s dea th . The ido la t ry t h a t c ame to s u r r o u n d h i m is reflected in m a n y a l m a n a c s as in m a n y poems . D u r i n g his l i fet ime Ha l l ey a n d H o o k e were be t t e r k n o w n to a lmanac .wr i t e r s a n d more f r equen t ly quoted .

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Eng l i sh A l m a n a c s and the " N e w A s t r o n o m y " 9

might hesitate to class the best of them as almanacs, and feel rather tha t these were important contributions to the growing periodical litera- ture of the century.

But these are generalizations and impressions based, perhaps, upon insufficient evidence, for not even eight hundred almanacs can tell the whole tale of the complex century in which science was emerging, and in which the " new astronomy " was threatening old astrology. Let us turn rather to a specific s tudy of actual documentary evidence, in order to see the extent to which the compilers of almanacs were aware of the assaults which were being made upon old security. This can best be done by tracing three frequent themes : the at t i tude of the almanac- writers toward new stars, which once had seemed to threaten the very existence of astrology ; toward comets, which had been the portents of disaster ; and toward various ramifications of the Copernican hypothesis which, once accepted, would ultimately put an end to all their prog- nostications and predictions.

II.

A study of the at t i tude of astrologers toward n o v x is of particular importance, since the great popular outcry against such a conception at the time of the discovery of Tycho's " new star " of 1572, and again of Kepler 's star of 1604, was that such a hypothesis as the possible appearance of new stars threatened the basis of astrology 21. Since a principal theory adduced to explain the appearances in 1572 and 1604 was that the " new stars " were comets, it is no surprise to find tha t many of the early almanac-writers, when they mention the nova of 1572, classify it as a " blazing star ", tha t is, a comet, and associate its appearance chiefly with " a sharp winter ". While there is disagreement about the exact date =2 such a " blazing star " is mentioned again and again in early chronologies, together with a period in 1574 when " t h e whole heavens seemed to burn with fire " Not until 1630 does an almanac- writer definitely state tha t the phenomenon of 1572 was a nova. In his chronology of " Memorable Accidents " in 1630 Arthur Sofford notes: " 1572. An admirable new Starre appeared in the constellation of Cassiopma from November 9, Anne 1572, till March 31, 1574 ". Sofford

2t I h a v e t r ea t ed th i s sub jec t in " T h e Telescope a n d I m a g i n a t i o n , " Modern Philology, 1935, 32, 233-60, a n d " T h e ' l ~ e w A s t r o n o m y ' a n d Eng l i sh L i t e r a ry I m a g i n a t i o n ", Studies in Philology, 1935, 32, 428-62.

l~ E d w a r d Pond , in his A lmanack for 1607, g ives t h e da te correct ly as 1572, a n d m e n t i o n s i t in severa l la ter issues. I t is correc t ly da ted , a n d called a " b laz ing s t a r " in Dade , New Almanacke, 1611 ; in l~eue, 1611, 1615, 1624, 1630 ; in Woodhouse , 1615 ; in Koene , 1615 ; in Alles~ree, 1627, 1630 ; in Whi te , 1630. Sa rnue lPerk ins , 1627, gives t he da te as 1577. A r t h u r Sofford, whose chronology in m a n y o the r w a y s is m o s t complete , does nob m e n t i o n i t un t i l 1630, t h o u g h in 1627 he menbions a " g r ea t b laz ing s t a r " of 1580.

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t0 Prot~ssor Marjor ie Nicolson on

is also the first of the a l m anac -m ake r s to men t ion specifically Kep le r ' s nova of 1604. I n the same chronology he notes : " A new Starre in the constel lat ion of Ophiucus appeared , cont inuing f rom Septemb. 1604, to J a n u a r y 1606 ". F r o m this t ime on the chronologies as a rule conta in some men t ion of the new s ta r of 1572, correct ly dated, toge the r wi th m a n y references to the new s ta r of 1604. While an occasional l a te r chronology still keeps the old te rminology, and ment ions e i ther or bo th as " blazing s tars ", there seems l i t t le quest ion t h a t the chronologists as a g roup a f te r 1630 recognized and accep ted the existence of new stars. Wil l iam Lilly, in The Worlds Catastrophe i n 1647, discusses the s tars a t length, and concludes :

" Therefore we conclude with Tycho, that those New Starrs were such : as never appeared before from the beginning of the world, and that they continued in the same places of the heaven above a whole year, and were at length successively dispersed: And therefore are to be accounted miracles in the expectation of all men, but more in their understanding ; and amongst those things which have been seen since the beginning of the world, in the whole nature of things, and which be recorded in History, are spectacles to be wondred at . . . . "

A cen tu ry a f te r Tycho ' s d i scovery the whole p rob lem of novoe was again rev ived in a lmanacs in connexion wi th the possible effects which the new s ta r was exer t ing a f te r one hundred years. Wi l l iam Andrews devo ted the chief essay in his Coelestes Observationes for 1669 to ponder ing upon the possible la te r effects of the nova. H e wrote :

" The time seems also drawing near, wherein some of the effects of that famous New Star, in Cassiopeia (anne 1572, observed by the Learned Tyeho Brahe) still remaining to operate, will assuredly appear and be manifested in the World. For although, its near 100 Years ago, since the appearance of tha t Star, and much of the matter signified thereby, without doubt hath already long ago been accomplished, yet notwithstanding we may justly conjecture, according to the Rules of Art, that some part of its Portents, lyes yet undiscovered, and will about 3, or 4 years hence break forth in the Northern parts . . . . "

Wil l iam Lil ly includes in his " Astrological J u d g e m e n t s " in the M e r l i n i

Ang l i c i Ephemer i s for 1674 a long discussion of the nova of 1572 in connexion wi th the W a r wi th the Dutch . Here he describes the s ta r in detail, d is t inguishing it f rom planets , comets , and fixed stars, and concludes :

" I t cannot be doubted but that this New Star was of purpose created, for manifestations of summe events unto the World, which were to be visible in the due time . . . . sith its now one hundred years since its manifestations, we may expect some beginnings of those mutations it was the Prodromus of, but not the full demonstrations of them for many years "

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English Almanacs and the " N e w Astronomy " 11

In 1676 Lil ly no ted in the same a lmanac : " We cannot b u t admire the great providence of God, who in 1572, d i rec ted the appearance of t h a t new Star in Cassiopeia ". H e n r y Coley, Lil ly 's successor, looked back in 1687 upon the m a n y discoveries made in the last century, and wrote :

" 'Tis observable that in our Age (by help of the Telescope) we have seen the spots in the Sun, and its conversion upon its own Axis ; We have seen the lateral Guardians or Satellites of Saturn and Jupiter, the various Phases of Mars, the Horns of Venus and Mercury, the Mountains and Seas of the Moon; We have seen the Generation of Comets, the Apparition and Disapparition of New Stars . . . . "

The failure of earlier a lmanac-wri ters to distinguish between " n e w stars " and " blazing stars " leads d i rec t ly to a consideration of thei r a t t i t ude toward comets. As in all kinds of popular l i terature, comets in the earlier years were considered chiefly in re la t ion to thei r supposed effects upon mankind. Thus, as has been suggested, the " blazing s t a r " of 1572 was par t icu lar ly associated wi th a " hard winter ". There is no ment ion in the ear ly almanacs of the comet of 1607 later to be known as " Hal ley ' s ". The comet of 1.618, however,

" . . . . t h a t fired the length of Ophiucus huge I ' th ' arct ic sky . . . . ",

f rom you th fu l memories of which the bl ind Milton drew his figure of speech, impressed con tempora ry observers to such an ex ten t t h a t for m a n y years i t was ment ioned in chronologies as " the last blazing Starre " Ranger ' s Almanack for 1624 ment ions " a great blazing starre " five years before ; Sofford in the same year dates i t more exac t ly as " f rom 18th of Nov. unt i l ]6 of Dec. 1618 " ; Perkins in 1639, Woodhouse in 1631, Pierce in 1634, all ment ion it. George Whar ton , in his Calendarium Carolinum for 1645, speaks of i t as " A Comet first observed in Engl. by Dr. Bainbr ig ". Lilly, in Englands Propheticall Merline, as late as 1644, says : " The last Comet which appeared in Europe was Anne. 1618, excel lent ly observed by Longomontanus in Astronomia Danica ", bu t adds charac ter is t ica l ly : " All Comets signifie Wars, terrours, and strange events in the world "

In the almanacs of the first ha l f -cen tury l i t t le effort is made to deter- mine the na tu re of comets ; in so far as t h e y are discussed at all, apa r t f rom thei r effects, t hey are vaguely classed wi th " meteors ", and the accounts in the main agree wi th those given in such a s tandard work as tha t of Fu lke on the subject 2~. About 1650, however, a new a t t i t ude begins to make itself felt, thanks to the close and accura te telescopic

2a A most pleasant Prospect into the Garden of naturall Contemplation, to behold the naturall causes of all kinds of Meteors. By W. Fulke, London , 1602, pp. 14 ff. The re were va r ious edi t ions of t h i s work, which was considered s t a n d a r d for t h e period.

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12 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

observations of astronomers. The comet of December 1652 is described with exactness in the Syzyffiasticon Instauratum in 1654-5. Its first appearance on Wednesday, December 8, is reported, with the remark: " This night (for any thing I have yet heard) it was seen only by Mr. Childrey ". Its movements during the succeeding days are noted in a careful table, and a letter from a correspondent in the Barbadoes is added, describing its appearance there. The comets of 1664--prophetic as they proved to be--at t racted much attention on the part of almanac- makers. William Lilly describes them at length in the Merlini Anflici Ephemeris for 1666, raising the question whether the appearances were of three separate comets or whether one comet appeared three times. John Tanner, in the Angelus Britannieus for the same year, discusses them in detail. I t was inevitable that, after the events, the comets of 1664 should have been held prophetic of the Great Fire and the Great Plague. In 1668 William Lilly again discusses the portent of 1664, " the strangest blazing star tha t ever was heard of ", which, he added, " continues to this day " (September 27, 1667). In 1669 Lilly again rehearses the recent tragedies of fire, plague and Continental wars, beginning his discussion with the words: " We have observed many effects of the late Comets in 1664 their influence, very terrible they have been in those Kingdoms unto which the Tail inclined " 24. In 1677 the appearance of another comet led Lilly to add to his comments in his annual almanac a separate pamphlet treating of comets in general ~5 Here Lilly discusses the theory of " m o s t Philosophers" that comets are " sublunary Meteors ", attracted by the Sun to a vast height, even above the orb of the Moon "

The appearance of a comet in November 1680, still visible in January 1681, was the occasion for another outburst of interest on the part of almanac-makers. This comet was followed in 1682 by the appearance of that comet from observations of which Halley derived the clue to the theory of comets tha t was ultimately to break down superstition. William Lilly, in 1684, again devotes his main essay in the Merlini Anflici Ephemeris to a discussion of comets, spending four pages in a close description of the comet of 1682. Here for the first time Lilly shows himself more interested in the scientific theory of comets than in their portents; his discussion is based less upon Aristotle, as in the past,

24 H e re la tes a s t o ry of a comet seen f rom the p l an t a t i on o f Lord BMthno re in " Merry- land " a n d t he r e s u l t a n t s l augh te r o f Eng l i sh p lan te r s by Ind ians , a n d a n o t h e r accoun t f r om ~ho Barbadoes . Lilly discusses t he come t o f 1664 fu r t he r in h is a l m a n a c for 1674. Cf. also t he accoun t o f J o h n G a d b u r y in his "ECNMEPIE for t h e s a m e year .

25 Strange News from the East. Or, A Sober Account of the Comet, or Blazing-Star, that has been seen severa~ Mornings o] late, London , 1677.

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English Almanacs and the " N e w Astronomy" 13

than upon l~iccioli and other modern observers ~6. l~rom this time on the at t i tude toward comets, as toward many other celestial phenomena, becomes more and more scientific. While superstition regarding these strange visitants did not entirely cease, the effect of Newton, Hooke, and Halley is to be seen in the fact that when comets are discussed by the better almanac-writers references are made to the theories of these men, and interest tends to be in scientific explanation of the nature of comets rather than in prophecy of their effects. The fact that a number of almanac-makers accepted the theory of the periodicity of comets shortly after the publication of Halley's work is remarkable, in view of the persistence in most popular literature of the older ideas, which Swift was still satirizing in his " True and Faithful Narrative " and in the Voyage to Laputa 2~

One of the most competent rdsumds of the theory of comets to be found in popular literature in the first decade of the eighteenth century appears in The Ladies Diary for 1709. The author, John Tipper, devotes his leading essay in that number of his almanac to a discussion " Of the Nature and Motions of Comets ". Tipper begins b y mentioning the conventional ideas of comets so long accepted: " Comets, or Blazing Stars, were by the Ancients, taken to be nothing else, but Vapours and Exhalations, or such like dissipable Matter ". To that he opposes the modern hypothesis : " But by our late Astronomers (and that more truly) they are found to be a Species of Planets, that revolve about the Sun in Elliptical Orbits, whose Periodical Times and Motions, are as constant, certain, and regular, as those of the planets ". Newton and Halley are well known to the author of The Ladies Diary, who mentions the former in connexion with the heat of comets, and quotes " the Ingenious Captain Halley " as saying tha t the comet of 1682 would reappear in 1758. Not only does Tipper agree with this conclusion in regard to " Halley's comet " ; he himself, he tells his feminine readers, has devoted much time to both observation of comets and s tudy of their history, with the result that he is persuaded that various other comets will return, and that several will reappear before the next appearance of Halley's comet.

I I I .

The most important problem still remains to be discussed : what was the at t i tude of the writers of almanacs towards that "Copernicanism"

~6 Other d iscuss ions in t h e s a m e y e a r a p p e a r e d in H e n r y Hill, AZTPOAOi'IA, Or, A Starry Lecture ; Wi l l i am Andrews , News from the Stars ; R icha rd Saunders , Apollo Angli. caius.

37 I h a v e d iscussed th i s ma tber in s o m e deta i l in " The Scientific B a c k g r o u n d of Swif t ' s Voyage to Laputa " in Annals of Science, 1937, 2p 312-17,

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14 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

which, when accepted, was to break down the long tradition upon which astrology was based ? Undoubtedly a merely statistical s tudy of the many almanacs of the seventeenth century would show that the majori ty remained Ptolemaic until at least the middle of the century. Certainly those tha t were designed for the simpler people, who consulted them merely for information in regard to seasons, tides, weather, and eclipses, were content to carry on the old tradition as a basis for prognostication. In such a study as this, however, mere numbers are of little significance, because of the marked change that occurs in the characters of the almanacs and of the reading public. I t is of more importance to consider tendencies in those almanacs tha t show in their prefaces and essays tha t they were intended for a public that read rather than consulted. Again, as in the other themes that have been discussed, one finds almanacs changing about the middle of the century. In the period before 1640 the Ptolemaic almanac is so much the rule tha t any other system at once attracts attention as an exception. The interesting thing, as one surveys the almanacs as a group, is not that many of the earlier almanacs remain Ptolemaic, but that those based upon Tycho and Copernicus are as many and as vigorous as they are. If, in the earlier years, the struggle seems still to be between Ptolemy and Copernicus, in the middle years it lies almost entirely between the Copernican and the Tyehonic systems, with the Ptolemaic only a conventional background. In the latter part of the century one by one the upholders of Tycho give way before the Copernican system, which is finally established es

The later Tychonic-Copernican controversy is to be seen in its earlier stages in the almanacs of Arthur Hopton and Thomas Bretnor, both of whom departed from Ptolemy and upheld one of the newer theories, Hopton on the whole following Tycho, Bretnor defending Copernicus. While both of them show the vacillation common in the age, as did many better known scientific writers, each of them comes out clearly for certain phases of the new astronomy. Hopton definitely refuses to accept the Copernican theory in his No president but a plain Progno- stication for 1608, to which he appends a subtitle, " Wherein the stabilitie and concentricitie of the Earth is proved ". In an essay in that number he at tempts " A short refutation of those opinions that denie the Earth

~8 This conclusion, which will be developed below, agrees with that of J. L. E. Dreyer, History of the Planetary Systems from Thales to Kepler, Cambridge, 1906, p. 416, with the findings of Johnson in chapter viii of the work cited above, and also with those of Grant McColley in " The Astronomy of Paradise Lost", Studies in Philology, 1937, 34, 210-11, 234ff. As the two later scholars show, these controversies occur much earlier in the works of the really scientific writers ; popular literature is slower to reflect the change. While the reflection may be found in other popular literature somewhat earlier than in the almanacs, it is remarkable that this form of publication, based originally upon the old astrology, should have reflected the ideas as early as it did,

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English Almanacs and the "New Astronomy" 15

to rest as the fixed center to the Heaven ". While some of his points are Ptolemaic, in all his works he leans toward the hypothesis of Tycho, whom he quotes constantly on the sizes of the planets and their orbits. In his Concordancy of Years for 1615 he writes :

" The number of the fixed Starres, that the Astronomers take notice of, is 1025. But the Portugals have brought home newes (by their voyages to India) of certaine other Constellations and Cloudes neere to the South pole ; but those discoveries as yet be not held probable, chiefly for that Ptolomeus, in respect of the place where he dwelt, with a little more travell, might have found them out, but did not "

In the same passage he definitely denies the possible infinity of the stars ; though his argument is drawn entirely from Scriptural passages and he makes no mention here of Copernicus, it is possible that he was denying a hypothesis tha t he felt to be implicit in Copernicus 29. He devotes a chapter to discussion of Tycho's means of determining the figures for the size of planets and their orbits, and shows tha t he leans to the newer astronomer a0. On the whole, a " modern " rather than an " ancient " in all his scientific work, Hopton's insistence that, as we do not hesitate to invent and use new instruments, so we need not hesitate to follow newer authorities, is significant of the atti tude that is to be found more clearly in many of the later almanac-writers who defended either the Tychonic or the Copernican astronomy against the Ptolemaic.

Among the earlier almanac-writers, none is more advanced in his astronomical theories than Thomas Bretnor 31, who in nearly all his almanacs not only bases his prognostications upon Copernicus, but openly defends the new theory. He both adapts the older astrological terminology to the Copernican theory 32, and also changes such older expressions as " then (according to old dotage) did the Sun enter the first scruple of the cold and melancholicke signe Capricorne " to read: " rather according to verity this earthly planet entring the first minute of Cancer, and furthest deflected from the Sunnes perpendicular raies,

2g Cf. G r a n t McColley, " S e v e n t e e n t h - C e n tu ry Doct r ine of a P lu ra l i ty of Wor ld s " , Annals of Science, 1936, 1, 385-430, especial ly Sections I I & I I I ; " Nicolas Copernicus a n d a n Inf in i te Un ive r se ", Popular Astronomy, 1936, 44, 525-33 ; J o h n s o n ' s cri t icism, Astronomical Thought etc., pp . 107-8 ; a n d MeColley 's s u b s e q u e n t essays , " The E i g h t h Sphere of De Revolutionibus ", Annals of Science, 1937, 2, 354-6, a n d " T h e Unive r se o f De Revolutionibus ", f o r t h c o m i n g in Isls.

s0 H o p t o n ' s in te res t in Tyeho is fu r the r d iscussed by Johnson , Astrono~nlcal Thought, pp. 253-6.

31 J o h n s o n , Astronomical Thought, pp. 250-51, m e n t i o n s E d w a r d G r e s h a m as " a n ou t r igh t Copernican ". I h a v e nob e x a m i n e d a n y of the ~hree e x t a n t G r e s h a m a lmanacs . Since t h e one " C o p e r n i c a n " pas sage which J o h n s o n g ives f rom the a l m a n a c for 1604 seems to m e capable o f a different in te rpre ta t ion , I a m omi t t i ng G r e s h a m f rom considerat ion.

s, Newe Almanacke and Prognostication for th~ yeare of our Lard God, 1616,

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16 Professor l~Iarjorie Nieolson on

did then receiue least portion of Sunshine " aa. Bretnor writes with vigour in one protracted essay in his almanac for 1618 against " some scrupulous and crack-brained sciolists, some of our owne true also, who write Christian Almanaekes forsooth ". That, like many others, he has not entirely broken away from old superstition is to be seen in the fact that he takes issue with those who deny that the planets and stars have power over the earth, and who assert tha t comets and eclipses portend nothing to man. But he takes issue as strongly with those who assert that they will prove " tha t the Moon hath not light of the Sun, but of her selfe . . . . That the Moone is no cause of the motion of the Sea and Tides . . . . That the Earth is not round . . . . That the Sunne is not so great as the earth "

Although few of the writers of the earlier period go so far as Bretnor and Hopton there are many indications in more conventional almanacs of awareness of the new theories, particularly in the tendency to quote the figures and dimensions given by Tycho and Copernicus in opposition to Ptolemy ~4. In 1627 Abraham Grammar offered in his " Notes Astronomicall " to his Prognost icat ion descriptions of the system of the universe first " according to Tres Noble Tycho Brahe ", then according to Copernicus; he did not finally commit himself to either. For the same year Walter Strof added to his N e w A l m a n a c k e and Prognost icat ion an essay " Of Astronomic in generall ", in which he expounded the Tychonic system. At some time during the 1630's Dove's almanac, which was to remain one of the most popular for many generations, began a defence of the Tychonic system, which the various editors upheld for over half a century. Dove's A l m a n a c k for 1635 contains an essay of several pages, in which the Tychonic system is explained, and to which is appended a Tychonic diagram of the universe. Although these various almanacs indicate the interest of their editors in the two newer systems, it must be readily admitted that such references are sporadic and difficult to find, and tha t the prevailing tendency of almanacs before 1640 was to carry on the old accepted terminology and the Ptolemaic system as a basis for prognostication.

After 1640 defences of Copernicanism become much more frequent

aa Ibid., 1615. Both these instances are also pointed out by Johnson, who suggest~ tha t Bretnor's Copernlcanlsr- is evident in all his almanacs from 1605 to 1618. While I have examined all Bre tnors almanacs from 1611 to 1618, I have not seen the edi t ion of 1607 which he mentions in his note.

3~ I find such quotations in the almanacs of Sofford, published from 1619 to 1631 ; Philip Ranger, 1615-31 ; Joseph Chamtmrlaine, P~ognastica$ion, 1627 ; George Hawkins, whose a lmanacs for 1624, 1625, and 1626 I have used; Mathew Pierce, whose a lmanacs were published in the 1630's; and the one extant almanac of Thomas Turner for 1634. Johnson mentions also the praise of Tycho in the New Almanacke or Prognostication for Gambridge, 1627, which I have not soon,

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EngZish Almanacs and the "New Astronomy" 17

in almanacs. I n pa r t this was undoub ted ly the result o f the growing " Baconianism " of the cen tury as. Bacon himself, i t is true, showed l i t t le interest in a s t ronomy and none in Copernicanism. Nevertheless, the s t eady increase among his followers af ter 1640 served to s t imula te interest in the " new as t ronomy " for a t least two reasons. In the first place, his disciples cons tan t ly emphasized the need for a b reak with the past , and the r ight of the " moderns " to develop the i r own ideas. Ev e n more im por t an t t han the depar tu re f rom P to l emy was the final b reak wi th Aristotle, which reached its cl imax in this period on the par t of bo th Baconians and Cartesians 36. I t is no surprise to find even such a conservat ive a lmanac-maker as Will iam Lilly, writ ing in a defence of as t rology against Calvin in Englands Propheticall Merline for 1644 :

" I f Art since his time have ibund out more than he knew, shall we reject that knowledge because he spoke nothing of tha t ? the most learned of these times maintaine the Earths motion, he the contrary, and so the noble Tycho : was all learning buried with Aristotle, or Astrology with Ptolemy ? "

Nicholas Culpeper, ano ther edi tor who was by no means a radical, wrote in his Ephemeris for 1651 :

" There is such difference amongst Ancient Writers . . . . about the General Figure of the World, which I take to be the reason of their difference in calculating the Planets places, Ptolemy held his own, Copernicus derides and detrudes him, and sets up another, Ticho had a third, and Argol a fourth. I hold to Copernicus as the truest "

i n the second place, Bacon's cons tan t insistence upon the possible advancemen t of science th rough the invent ion and deve lopment of ins t ruments was all the more willingly accepted b y those who in the i r own lifetime had observed the rapid strides made in a s t ronomy af te r the deve lopment of the telescope. The growing mathemat ica l t emper of the pe r iod - - in pa r t a heri tage f rom Descar tes--a lso t ended t o s t imula te interest even among such minor writers as those of almanacs, because of the closer approx imat ion of Copernican as t ronomy to the . ac tual s i tuat ion revealed by the telescope. These, wi th m a n y other complex causes, served to change the " climate of opinion " in all fields of scientific t hough t dur ing the period t h a t was marked b y the es tabl ishment of the

85 Seventeenth-century almanacs afford s~rong evidence in favour of the thesis, presented by R. F. Jones, Ancients and Moderns, St. Louis, 1936, that Bacon's influence, only slightly important before, grew steadily after 1640. I have found nothing tha t can be called " Baconiaulsm " in almanacs before 1640 ; after tha t date it becomes almost immediately apparent, and grows steadily for many years.

35 I have discussed the period of the introduction into England of Cartesian ideas in " The Early Stages of CarCesianism in England ", Studies in Philology, 1929, 26, 356-74. The influence of Descartes was particularly strong in Cambridge, while that of Bacon was felt most powerfully at Oxford.

Ann. of Sei.--Vo]. 4, No, 1, c

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18 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

various groups of scientists in London and at Oxford, who were finally to be amalgamated in the Royal Society.

A more specific influence, at least upon such popular writers as we are considering, was the publication in 1638 of John Willdns's Discovery of a New World in the Moone, with the expanded third edition of 1640 under the title A Discourse concerning a New World and Another Planet. Of all the works of " popular astronomy " in E n g l a n d during the seventeenth century there is no question tha t this was the most influential. As a scientist Wilkins's reputation with his colleagues in the Philosophical Society of Oxford, and later in the Royal Society, was unquestioned. He possessed the rare ability of clarifying for the layman highly technical scientific works without destroying their scientific validity. His books were read eagerly by all classes of people 87. They stimulated interest in such ideas as tha t of a world in the moon, the inhabitability of the moon, and flying-chariots by means of which Englishmen might colonize the newly discovered world. They interpreted the scientific works of Kepler and of Galileo in such a way as to bring them within the compre- hension of writers of romance, fantasy, and satire. In addition, Wilkins was a reverent member of the Church (later Bishop of Chester), whose sincerity was unquestioned. His interpretation of Scripture in such a way as to make old belief consistent with new science was such as to set at rest many minds, eager for new ideas, yet still restrained by traditional belief. The many references to the man and his works in almanacs of the period is only another evidence of the extent to which he was read and followed.

The fact tha t many of the almanac-makers after 1640 recognize the work of Galileo to an extent not observable before seems to have been the direct result of Wilkins. While Galileo's name is occasionally mentioned in passing in earlier almanacs, the first protracted recognition of his work in these handbooks seems to be that in the New Almanacke and Prognostication ofNathaniel Nye for 1643. In an essay on " Certaine Observations and new discoveries made in the Celestiall Regions " Nye discusses at length " Many singular Inventions and new discoveries " which have " proceeded from the Astronomers of late times, as first, Galileus Mathematician to the Duke of Medicus a prineipall furtherer of the Perspective glasses ". In the essay he relates the discoveries tha t Galileo had reported in the Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 : the nature of the Milky Way, the satellites of Jupiter, Galileo's conclusions in regard to the light of the moon and of the fixed stars, and his discovery of the

sT I have discussed cer ta in aspecbs of his popular i ty and influence in A World in the Moon (Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, 1936, xvil) and in " Swift 's ' F ly ing I s l a n d ' in t h e Voyage to Laputa ", Annals of Science, 1937, 2, 405-31. See also Grant McColley, " Mil ton 's Dialogue on As t ronomy ", Publications of the Modern Language Association, lii (September, 1937), 234-8 ; and " The Ross-Wilkins Controversy ", Annals of Sciencej !938, 3~ 153-90,

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English Almanacs and the "New Astronomy " 19

nature of the moon which " hath divers Mountaines, Vallies, Sea, and Land " After Wilkins the man most responsible for persuading astro- logers of the t ruth of Copernicanism as interpreted by Galileo was Joshua Childrey, who in his Indago Astrologica in 1652 had extolled Galileo, and built up a strong ease for the Copernican hypothesis. The next year he turned to the publication of almanacs, and for some years produced his Syzygiasticon Instauratum, in which, as has been suggested, he preached the gospel of Galileo on the one hand and of Bacon on the other. I t is his desire, he says, " to write that which Sr. Francis Bacon eals (in his Catalogue of Histories, at the end of his Novum Organon) Historia Coelestium sive Astronomica; by which the t ruth of Copernicus his Systeme (in grosse) will appear beyond the reach of all objection " Each of the numbers of Childrey's almanacs is an at tempt to explain the Copernican theory, and to base predictions upon it, an endeavour in which he was closely followed by his disciple, Vincent Wing, and by others.

The first almanac tha t definitely advert ises" A Double Ephemeris . . . . Geocentricall and Heliocentricall " was tha t of Thomas Streete, who in his almanac for 1653 calls attention to the novelty of his undertaking. His Copernican tables came to be considered standard among later almanac-makers, and are referred to throughout the century. He declares in his almanac that he has added the Copernican section of the work" not for proof . . . . but for demonstration of the Copernican Systeme (that taske being already sufficiently performed by others, to whom we are not a little engaged for their paines ". So far as the astrologer is concerned, he insists, one system i s as valid as the other, and the astrologer has nothing to fear in adopting Copernicanism as the true system of the universe--a position in which he was followed by the leading astrologers throughout the century.

I t is, however, difficult to draw completely valid conclusions about the cosmic philosophy of the majori ty of almanac-writers between 1642 and 1660. Wars and rumours of wars, problems of reconstruction, economic and social changes were the concern of all men. To a generation engrossed in the present and in the immediate concerns of the little island it was of small moment whether the stars and the planets kept their courses according to the theories of Ptolemy, Tycho, or Copernicus. With the exception of a few such men as Childrey, who were profoundly interested in cosmological theories, and to whom knowledge of the eternal verities seemed more important than contemporary politics, few of the almanac-makers concerned themselves with philosophy. Indeed, during this period astrology came again for a time into its own, and comets and eclipses were forebodings of the doom that seemed to overhang the little world of man. In addition, almanacs came to be recognized as valuable tools of propaganda. The majority of their editors naturally

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20 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

sided with the par ty in power, and their prognostications were drawn less from the conjunctions of the planets than from the editors' desire to curry favour with the rulers. The essays that were prefixed and appended to the little octavos during this period are almost entirely concerned with political subjects: " chronologies " such as those of Wharton grew more and more popular in years when so many events seemed worth recording. One almanac-writer took sharp exception to another, with the result that the modern reader of these volumes must be aware first of the political affiliations of his editor before considering too curiously his astronomy. And yet this political opposition was to have its effect in bringing more sharply to the fore defences of various astronomical theories. A conservative, holding to the " ancient " rather than the " modern " ways, might find ammunition in upholding the theories of Ptolemy ; and his political opponent, zealous to show his opposition in all things, might reply with violence, defending the more " modern " position of Copernicus. While such defences as these, which show their motivation so clearly in political differences, must be discounted when they appear during the periods of the Civil War and of the Commonwealth, they nevertheless served a part in stimulating interest in astronomical theories, if only because they were presented under political guise.

In the period immediately following upon the Restoration the same general situation exists, though gradually, as the tumult and the shouting died, the political issues disappear from the almanacs, and many editors found themselves faced with the necessity of upholding upon astronomical grounds the " p l a t f o r m " they had inherited from politics. One example of anti-Copernicanism based upon politics will serve as an example of many. John Booker's anti-Copernicanism in his T e l e s c o p i u m U r a n i c u m

for 1661 has little to do with astronomy and much with his political opponents, as is proved by the doggerel he quotes, with the remark, " Cui concinit Auctor " as.

" Copernicus was of Opinion, That the Earth's Globe by Spherick motion Turn'd round, And that the Heavens were fixt : The Man Was drunk sure or on Shipboard, when his brain Hatcht this Maeander ; for to such the Land Both only seem to move when they do stand.

a8 Booker gives as reference only, " Ex Poematibus Roberti Iteath, Armigeri ". The poem may be found in Ctarastella : Together with Poems occasional, Elegies, Epigrams, Satyrs. By Robert Heath, Esquire, London, 1650. That I-~eath's att i tude on this particular occasion was occasioned rather by his political than by his scien$ifio prejudices may be seen from the inclusion in another of his works, Paradoxical Assertions and Philasophival Problems, London, 1659, of a very intelligent essay on the plurality of worlds, in which he shows wide knowledge of contemporary astronomy and its implications, and sympathetic understanding of Galileo,

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Engl i sh A l m a n a c s and the " N e w As t ronom y " 21

When Noah's flood had turn 'd the Land to Sea And the Earth seem'd one flooring Isle to be, The World then rid on Waves indeed, and then I ' th Ark there was no Terra F i rma seen. Yet true we find what was but Phansie then ; (For th world if we but understand the Men That live therein ;) For they alas turn round, And Scotomized sail on firmest ground ; Or drunk with madness, with their poreblind eyes, Think States wel-setled ; tot ter thou they rise. A strange Vertigo or Delirium O' th Brain it is, that thus possesses 'urn ; Whilst like to fashions grown Orbicular Kingdoms thus turn'd, and over-turned are ; Nothing but fine Utopian Worlds i' th Moon, Must be new form'd by Revolution. Nor doth the State alone on furtun's Wheeles Run round ; Alas, our Rock Religion reeles : We have saild so far the Antopodian way That into darkness we have turn 'd our day. Amidst these turnings, 'tis some comfort yet, Heaven doth not fly from us, though we from it "

The close relat ionship between the polit ical and the cosmic philosophies of a lmanac-makers is sat ir ized in an anonymous a lmanac for 1663, published under the tit le, Endymion . Or the M a n - I n - T h e - M o o n , H i s Northern Weather Glasse 39 The almanac, d i rected chiefly against Culpeper, Booker, and Lilly, stresses the vacillations of the almanac- writers in bo th politics and cosmology. This almanac, declares the editor , offers ne i ther a " geocentricall " nor a " heliocentricall " system, bu t ra the r " a new Hieroglyphical l System of Astrology ". Astrologers, the edi tor cynical ly remarks, " will sooner unders tand Copernicus, then this d raugh t of your H a n d " In doggerel verse, as well as in prose, the wri ter in t roduces m a n y con tempora ry ideas ; he plays a t one t ime with the discoveries and theories of Galileo, and again with Wilkins's conception t h a t this ea r th m a y be a p lanet and shine a t n ight to the moon as she to us ; he shows th roughou t close knowledge of Wilkins's work, and of various o ther serious and fictional writers who, f rom the t ime of Godwin, had proposed the possibil i ty of a voyage to the moon.

I t would be possible to br ing for th an imposing a r r ay of references to Copernicanism culled f rom post -Restora t ion almanacs. However , a more specific s tudy of some of the leading almanac-wri ters of the period will show the t rue s i tuat ion more clearly. The leading Copernican

89 Endymion, 1663. Or, The Man.In-the-Moon His Northern Weather.Glass: Dis. covering Most of the turnings, returnings, by.turnings, and over-turnings, that are likely to happen in the Year 1663. Com/municated to his ~riend Selenieue (alias Tom-a.Bedlam) and by him Digested, and fitted with Observations for the Meridians of[Tell, Hull, and Haly.fax. Selenopolis (alias Bethlehem) MDCLIII.

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22 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

almanac of the day was edited by Vincent Wing, who, as has been stated, was a disciple of Childrey, and who set himself to carry on the fight waged by his master for the widespread acceptance of Copernicus. In his 'OATMHIA At~MATA for the year 1660 Wing, one of the few writers of that year who found time and space for astronomical discussion, offered a " Brief Description of the Mundane System . . . . being lately desired to vindicate the truth of the Systeme of the World, according to the Doctrine of Copernicus ". This was evidently Wing's opening gun, since he continues to refer to the essay for many years, and reprinted it in succeeding numbers. Until this issue Wing, whose almanacs had appeared for a number of years, had shown no interest in cosmic philo- sophy. Here he discusses in detail, with a good deal of competence, the theories of Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Tycho, and Copernicus, giving diagrams to make the system clearer to his readers, in 1662 he wrote another essay, " Of the Dimensions of the Planetary Orbs, according to the Copernican Systeme ". In the OATMI-IIA A~2MATA for 1663, in con- nexion with still another defence of the system, appears for the first time an advertisement of the volume that was finally to succeed in establishing the Copernican system among such writers as those of almanacs. Wing notes: " The famous works of Galileus are now printed in English, wherein the Earths motion is proved, and such Texts of Scripture, as seem to imply the contrary, are clearly reconciled ". The reference is to Salusbury's translation of Galileo, which began to appear in 1661 4o, and which for the first time made accessible Galileo's original conclusions to many of the astrologers, often men unlearned in languages. Wing not only continued to advertise Salusbury's translation in his almanacs, but in succeeding volumes went on with his work of popularization, writing both historical and expository essays upon the various systems of the world. While Wing discussed all the various cosmological theories, and paid high tribute to Ptolemy as " the best observer of the Planets places that ever yet appeared " 41, his praise is always for Copernicus. In the almanac for 1664 he concludes one of his discussions of the Copernican system with the words :

" . . . . which rare invention and discovery of the truth, having already received the good liking and approbation of all the most learned Divines, Philosophers, and Mathematicians in Europe, I hope there is none so adverse and opposite to reason, and such cleer Demonstrations, but they will assent to the naked truth so unanimously received, and retained

4o The Systeme of the World, in four dialogues, ~herin the two grand Systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus are . . . . discoursed of, etc. I n Mathematical Collections and Translations in two tomes (Englished fror~ the originall J~atine and Italian by T. Salusbury), London, 1661-5.

41 I n ~he almanac for 1663.

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English Almanacs and the "New Astronomy " 23

by all the learned Astronomers of this age. However I shall advise those that are yet unsatisfied, seriously to peruse the learned works of Galileus newly translated into English by Mr. Salusbury, and printed in two Volumns, wherein they may receive satisfaction, as well in point of Art, as in those Scripture expressions, which seem to imply the contrary ".

Until the end of the century the Wing almanacs continued with the teaching of the Copernican theory ; brft by that time the battle was fought and won, and there was no need for the constant program of propaganda that Wing carried on during the first decade after the Restoration.

During this decade Wing's bitterest opposition is to be found in the so-called Dove almanacs, which had been published for many years. As early as 1635, it will be remembered that the editor of this almanac had committed himself in favour of the Tychonic theory. While the succeeding editors continued to follow this theory, there is little evidence of any real interest on their par t until the issue for 1661, which is obviously intended as a reply to the essay that Wing had published in the preceding year. Dove and Wing had shown themselves antagonists in all matters during the period of the War and of the Commonwealth. If, then, Wing definitely committed himself to Copernicanism, it behoved the editor of Dove to take the opposite s ide--and the opposition had come to be centred in Tychonic cosmology, since no one of the more important almanacs of this period considered the Ptolemaic tenable. In 1661 Dove's Speculum Anni came out strongly against Copernicanism, with an essay defending Tycho and attacking Copernicus. To his almanac for that year Dove appended an essay with diagrams depicting " Tycho's system of figure of the Heavens " and " A System or figure of the Heavens according to Argol ", stressing the fact that both Tycho and Argo1" account the earth to be the centre of the world, and unmoveable ". In the almanacs for 1665 and again for 1668 appears " a brief description of the World ", v~ith a Tychonic diagram. Here Dove denied the validity of the Ptolemaic theory, insisting that " by the unparallel'd instruments, joyned with the unwearied assiduity, and almost invaluable expence of the Tres-Noble Tycho ", its conclusions " h a v e been found altogether false ". Each new essay o f Wing upholding Copernicus is answered in the next issue of Dove.

In the meantime, during this decade, most of the other almanac- writers fell into line behind the banner of one or other of these two leaders. I t becomes increasingly difficult to find any defences of P to lemy; the Ptolemaic almanacs of this period are almost entirely devoid of any consideration of cosmic philosophy, and are merely dead echoes of an old sound. So far as the clash between the Tychonists and the Copernicans is concerned, it is clear even in this decade that the

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24 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

Tychonic group was giving ground before the opposition. There were many who agreed with John Whiting, who wrote in his Ephemeris for 1669 :

" That the Sun is the centre of the visible world is without all dispute, and is sufficiently proved by that learned man. Mr. Vincent Wing, in many of his works, and that it is the motion of the Earth that causeth all those strange appearances we behold in the Planets from the Earth"

By 1680 Copernicanism had been accepted by so many of the almanac- writers tha t it would be a work of supererogation to mention their casual comments. Even Dove's almanac, the last important spokesman for Tycho, was coming into line with the theory that the earlier editor had spent so much ink in denying. That Dove's conversion was the result of the great strides made in telescopic observation, conclusions of which could no longer be disproved, is to be surmised from the fact that before Dove made his actual pronouncement for Copernieanism, various numbers of his almanac showed increasing interest in telescopic findings. Thus the almanac for 1684 gives an extended account of the moon seen through the telescope by which " every eye may plainly perceive a dissimilitude of parts in her visible body ". In 1690 the leading article in Dove's almanac was devoted to " Arguments proving the motion of the Earth " Here the author discusses the contentions of Ptolemy, opposes to them those of Copernicus, gives the dimensions of the planets and their distances according to the latter, not, as for many years, according to Tycho, and concludes :

" . . . . yet are their appearances much the same whether the Sun, Earth, or Fixed Stars do move or stand still . . . the Ptolemaic and Copernican Spheres are contrary to one another, as to their Hypothesis, yet do they shew the same thing in the Heavens, there are the same appearances "

From this time forth Dove becomes a thoroughgoing Copernican, as the issues of 1692 and 1698 indicate. The battle had been fought and won ; the most stalwart of the adversaries had at last capitulated.

in the period after 1680 the former limited controversy over the relative position of the earth and sun gives place to more significant essays on various aspects and implications of the new astronomy, which, while they had been discussed before, only now became of predominant interest to the almanac-writers. Certain of the editors are interesting enough, both in the amount of space they devote to popularizing these implications, and in their own comments, to warrant discussion. William Andrews, in his News from the Stars for t684, shows himself a man of wide interest in various aspects of contemporary thought. He discusses the significance of the discovery of new stars ; he has much to say of the

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English Almanacs and the " N e w Astronomy " 25

comet of 1682; he quotes f rom Bacon and f rom Joseph Glanvill , and concludes wi th a quo ta t ion f rom Bishop Hal l , in which he stresses one of the ideas t h a t the new a s t r o n o m y h a d b rough t home to m a n :

" Even this Sensible and Material World, if we could conceive aright of it, is enough to amaze the most inlightened reason ; for if this Globe of Ear th in regard of the immense greatness of it, is wont (not unjustly) to be accounted a World, what shall we say of so many thousand Stars, that are (for the most part) bigger then it. How can we but admire so many thousand Worlds of Light, rolling continually over our heads . . . . How poorly must tha t man needs think of the Workmanship of the Almighty, tha t looks upon all these, but as so many Torches, set up in the Firmament every Evening, only so big as they seem ? "

George P a r k e r ' s " double ephemer is " in his Merl inus Anglicanus ibr 1692 was justif ied b y a long preface in which he suggested t h a t the " nove l t y " of the Copernican not ions is now nove l ty no longer, and t h a t his age, unl ike those preceding, does no t hes i ta te to speak t r u t h mere ly because t h a t t r u t h runs counte r to es tabl ished a u t h o r i t y and t radi t ion .

Vincent W i n g - - o r his successor - -con t inued his articles on the new a s t r o n o m y for m a n y years, growing more and more in te res ted in the impl icat ions of Copernicanism. The issue for 1672 had conta ined a " t rue and real descr ipt ion of the P l a n e t a r y Orbs, wi th their exact pro- por t ion and quant i ty , according to the genuine Copernican Sys teme " I n 1690 appea red " The object ion of some agains t the mot ion of the Ear th , wi th a br ief answer thereuno, showing the errour of such false and groundless suggest ions ". The essay in the a lmanac for 1695 and for 1696 is " A br ie f discourse touching the Constellat ions, Number , Magni tudes, Motions and distances of the F ixed Stars ". He says in p a r t :

" As to the Number of the fixed Stars, if we may not conclude with Jordanus Brunus to be infinite, yet we may safely conclude their number innumerable according to the best advantage of sight by Glasses or otherways, tha t the best of mortals are capable of, for the Admirable Galilaeo in his Nuncio Sidereo tells us he discovered in the Cloudy Star of Orion, no less than 21 Stars more, and in the Astriam of the Pleiades or Seven Stars more than 40, and in tha t little space between the Girdle and sword of Orion, not less than 80, and in the space of a little more then a degree in the Constellation of Orion above 500 Stars, and likewise Reitha page 197, of his Radio Syderomystio possitively affirms he observed within the Constellation of Orion above 2000 Stars, and tho tis (in my opinion) impossible for the best of humane Skill to find out the exact number of the Fixed Stars since we cannot say they are always alike in number, for a t this time there is (by the most ingenious Observator as perhaps ever the World bred) Observed 500 glorious Stars which are not so much as mentioned by the Noble Tycho Brahe, who was as curious, in observing their number, as in obtaining their true Longitude and Latitude. Some of the Jewish Doctors are so bold as to tell us there is not above 12000 Fixed Stars in all the

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26 Professor Marjorie Nicotson o n

Firmament of Heaven, and those of the Cabala says there is not less than 29000 Myriads, but Schiekardus corrects this boldness with as little reason as the other affirms it, when he conceives that the whole Area of the Heavens would not contain above 26712 Myraids, the they were placed contiguous one to another, but these towring imaginations are grounded upon a slender foundation, for as the Earth whereon we live is but a point in respect of the large Expansion of the Heavens, and that no annual transferring of the Earth can cause any diversity in the appearance of the Fixed Stars, we must then conclude that the distance from the Earth to the Orbes of the Fixed Stars is vastly great and past finding out, and therefore impossible to determine exactly either their Number of Magnitudes, or distance one from another ".

Wing's l eng thy essay in his a lmanac for 1698, " A short descript ion of the visible world ", might almost be t aken as a r g s u m d of all t h a t the popular as t ronomers had learned during the century. He surveys again the various theories of as t ronomy, competen t ly analysing each one of them. The conclusions of " the learned Copernicus " he holds irrefutable, " and indeed so powerful and valid are the Geometr ical Demonstra t ions , and so accura te and cer ta in to represent the Phaenomena , and t rue motions of the Heavens, t ha t the ve ry meanes t Ty ro the divine Urania imploys in her service, can most easily and cer ta in ly tell him the errour of the one, and ve r i t y of the other ". He then lays down, in a series of t w e n t y s ta tements , the principles of the new phi losophy which, he declares, is " approved by all the most learned Mathemat ic ians of all Nat ions ", the chief of which m a y be summarized as follows : the sun and fixed stars shine by thei r own l igh t ; the moon " and other planets in our Sys teme " have no light of thei r o w n ; " the E a r t h differs not ( r a t i o n e

l u m i n i s ) in respect of her light, f rom the o ther Planets " ; the ear th must be " numbred among the Planets " ; the fixed stars do not always keep the same distances, bu t the planets do ; " the F ixed Stars are far remote , and wi thout the Per imete r of the sphere of Saturn, ye t are not (as An t iqu i ty thought ) all placed in one sphere, b u t eve ry one ha th a vas t space abou t i t (perhaps a P l ane t a ry Systeme) des t i tu te of o ther F ixed Stars ". All planets, including the ear th , are carried abou t the sun not in perfect circles bu t in elliptic paths. I t is impossible to know the distance of the fixed stars f rom the ear th and consequent ly f rom each other. " I f the E a r t h were beheld f rom Saturn, i t would appear much like to him, bo th in Magnitude and lusture [ s i c ] ". The directions, re t rogradat ions , and stat ions of the planets are not " essential " bu t " on ly an appearance at the ea r th ". The ear th , and p robab ly other planets, " ha th a proper mot ion upon her own Axis ". H e concludes t ha t " all the Phaenomena ' s of the Heavens m a y (upon the Copernican Systeme) most easily and exac t ly be resolved and de termined according to these Principles . . . . Only let me ask the anti-Copernicans whether

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there be a n y w a y so accura te and curious, or more facile to represent ~' 42 appearances

John Gadbury, who had formerly opposed the new astronomy, and then had refused to commit himself, began to publish in -1690 a series of essays in his "E~pH M EPI~ in which he vigorously upheld the modern ideas, influenced, as he himself says, by Joshua Childrey. His first approach is one familiar in the century : a series of historical essays in which he discusses various of the pre-Ptolemaic conceptions of the universe, in an effort to show that Copernieanism simply brought back into human thinking conceptions that had long been known and accepted, in 1695 he produced a long essay, " A Brief Enquiry into the Copernican Astro- logy ", illustrated by a diagram of the Copernican system. After a historical introduction, in which he speaks of the Copernican system as " an Antiquated Verity, most happily in this Age by him revived ", he continues :

" Reason assures us, That the most noble Body ought to possess the most noble place, viz., the Center. As tile Hear t in the Microcosm. And placing the Sun in the Center, he there (as I said) emits equally his Influence to all parts of the Circumference, and in like manner attracts from all parts thereof, with regard to their greater or lesser difference from him. The very order of Nature requires, that Inferiors should move and apply to Superiors; the Subject to the Sovereign, not the Sovereign to the Subject ; that ' s not only preposterous but unnatural. Now the Sun is Rex Planetarum; superior to all Stars whether Fixed or Erratick.

" The difference between this and Ptolemy's System is very evident (yet makes no difference in Astrology, as shall be shown in due place). And now, whereas, if we indulge the Ear th a Planet, and fix bhe Sun in the Center, as in this System, there will then be a just Proportion between the bigness of all the Planetary Orbs, and also in the different times of their Motions, which you see is as wittily as t ruly demonstrated by Copernicus; with whom concurs the thrice learned Wilkins, late Lord Bishop of Chester, and all later Astronomers.

" Indeed, the whole Heaven is only a well-tun'd Instrument, con- taining all the Variety of Harmony and Discord tha t Mortals meet withal, and is constantly making Musick to the several Planetary Bodies ; all which (for ought we know to the contrary) may be habitable, as well as the Ear th we tread o n . . . . "

I n his E qSNMEPIZ for 1699 and for 1700 G a d b u r y followed his earl ier essays wi th one on the sun and ano the r on the moon. Like o ther popu la r wr i ters of the day, he is c lear ly m u c h more in teres ted in solar energy

a2 T h a t t im influence o f Wi lk ins ' s work was still p o t e n t is i nd ica ted in the fac t t h a t W i n g concludes his d iscuss ion o f va r ious object ions t h a t h a v e been ra ised to t h e n e w s y s t e m w i t h t h e s t a t e m e n t : " These a n d m a n y s u ch Object ions , a re b o t h lea rnedly a n d fully answered b y Bp. Wi lk ins in h is d iscovery of a new Wor ld , to t he second p a r t of wh ich B o o k I refer t h e impa r t i a l reader for m o r e a m p l e sa t i s fac t ion in th i s m a t t e r " .

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28 Professor Marjorie Nicolson o n

t h a n in any problems per ta ining to the moon, since, as has been shown elsewhere, the moon sinks into compara t ive insignificance af ter Newton, tak ing its minor pa r t in the cosmic universe 4a, while the sun becomes more and more i m p o r t a n t as Copernicus is widely accepted. While G a d b u r y and others still follow the older te rminology and speak of the " i n f l u e n c e " of the moon and stars, i t is clear t h a t the t e rm now has a scientific r a the r t han an astrological connotat ion. W h a tev e r t h a t " influence ", G a d b u r y declares t h a t i t is a pa r t of the na tu ra l law b y which all planets and stars are bound. " The Moon, we know she is only a Re flexion, and Reflexions are t ied to laws ". Man can no longer believe, says Gadbury , t ha t such a planet as Mercury, " a P lane t so seldom seen, unlesse in the more Southern Par ts , was made for I l luminat ion only, or principally, to say noth ing of the Satellites ". H e writes in his essay on the moon in his a lmanac for 1699 :

" In this uncommon Essay, my purpose is not to teach Men to bake Cakes to the Queen of Heaven, or to worship the Moon, as was practised by the Pagans of old : nor yet to offer T a u r o p o l i a or the Sacrifices of Bulls to Diana, as the idolatrous Heathen did formerly, even in St. Paul's it self, when it was a Temple dedicated unto her. Neither shall I pretend to prove to you that the Moon's Globe is habitable, as this our Earth. Let the Learned Galilaeus and Reverend Wilkins etc., read unto you such curious and delightful Lectures. Nor yet shall I go about to instruct you in the Art of the thrice witty Domingo Gonzales, viz., How to take a Journey to the Moon's Orb by the Help of well- taught Ganzas " 44

As for the sun, Gadbury declares tha t , in a sense unknown to older astrologers, he is " the King of Stars and Planets ; the Eye, the Hear t , and Centre of the W o r l d " . While Gad b u ry still feels t h a t there m a y be an " influence " of the planets in ano the r sense t h an t h a t held in the past , the idea which he is vaguely t ry ing to reach is t h a t the influence consists in the mutua l interrelat ionships of the planets, a point of view t h a t was to grow increasingly common in the ethics and politics of the e igh teen th century.

4~ See m y World in the Moor~, in which I have a t t e m p t e d to show the g r ea t vogue o f t he m o o n in popu la r l i te ra ture , following u p o n t he discoveries o f Galileo. Whi l e moon- l i t e r a tu re is still popu l a r in t he la te :?oars o f t he s e v e n t e e n t h cen tury , t he re is n o t h i n g to compa re wi th t h e e n t h u s i a s m evoked b y Galileo's discoveries a n n o u n c e d in 1610 in t h e Sidereus Nunclus.

4t The reference is to The Man in the Moone : Or a Discourse of a Voyage thither, by Damingo Gonsales, London , 1638. T h i s r omance of Godwin ' s was t he first in Eng l i sh to reflect t he " new science " ; i ts inf luence increased r a the r t h a n d imin ished du r ing t he cen tu ry , a n d is to be found in m a n y of t h e " m o o n - v o y a g e s " o f t h e e igh t een th cen tu ry . The m a n y Engl i sh a n d con t inen ta l edi t ions o f Godwin ' s r o m a n c e are d iscussed in The Man in the Moone, edi ted by G r a n t McColley, Smith College Studies in Moder~ Languages, 1937, xix, no. 1, pp . vii-vii i .

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English Almanacs and the "New Astronomy " 29

One of the most interesting almanacs published in t he last years of the seventeenth century was the Apollo Anglicanus, which had been edited for a number of years by Richard Saunders before he began to take part in controversy. Beginning in 1694, he filled the twelve blank spaces in his annual calendar with little essays of a popular nature. The first group was concerned with an a t tempt to interpret old legends of stars in terms of the new astronomy. These were followed in 1699 by an essay in defenee of science. In 1700 Saunders used the space for a vigorous defence of the Copernican system. " Whether the Ear th move or stand still ", he begins, " hath been a Problem that hath much exercised the Wits of Astronomers and Philosophers. The more Knowing and Judicious, have for many Reasons, adhered to that Hypothesis, which admits the Motion thereof, Others, generally the Vulgar, and those who are ignorant of the Grounds and Principles of Astronomy, have rejected it, as a most extravagant Opinion ". The perennial question of Scriptural implications is raised, and answered largely by quotations from Kepler and Galileo. There is nothing new here, nothing tha t had not been said for a number of years. But the essays are so vigorous, dear, and designed to appeal to lay readers tha t they still retain some of the interest they stimulated in their period. Saunders's conclusion is definite :

" But he who is so stupid as not to comprehend the Science of Astronomy, or So weak and scrupulous as to think it an Offence of Piety to adhere to Copernicus, him I advise, that leaving the Study of Astro- nomy, and censuring of the Opinion of Philosophers, at pleasure, he betake himself to his own Conceits"

In the 1701 edition Saunders, first repeating his main contentions in the preceding articles, continues with an at tempt to make consistent the Copernican philosophy and the teasing account of the miracle of Joshua--a tale which, he it~sists, can be better interpreted from the point of view of Copernicus than of Ptolemy. The Copernican defence is repeated, with certain variations, in the editions of the next two years. In 1704 Saunders applies what he has been saying in the preceding editions to the vexing problem of the ebbing and flowing of the sea. While he shows close knowledge of many modern theories upon the subject, he draws his main conclusions not from Newton but from Hooke. The edition of 1705 recapitulates these arguments, adding some correspondence tha t the author has received in connexion with his defence of the earth's motion. The essay in the Apollo Anglicanus for 1706 is a rdsumd of the whole series of articles. " There are scarce any now ", says Saunders, " tha t have the face to be called Philosophers, but do as readily acknow- ledge the Motion of the Earth, as they do the reality of the Antipodes or the Circulation of the Blood ", Far from taking away from the

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30 Professor Marjorie Nicolson on

grandeur of the universe, as men used to believe, the modern theo ry makes for a grea ter universe and for a grea ter Creator. Our concept ion of the magn i tude of the great heavenly bodies has vas t ly expanded, and h u m a n imaginat ion, too, expands as i t contemplates those great orbs wheeling abou t the greates t of all. These conceptions, Saunders holds, are the gift of the great Galileo, whose name is re i tera ted cons tant ly in his essays. He concludes :

" I f with Des Cartes and his follower [sic], we allow the fixed Stars as so many Suns, and each placed in the center of a vortex, or planetary System, and many of them possibly as great as the Sun, and their being many thousands of fixed Stars, more than the bare Eye discovers, as plainly appears with the Telescope . . . . all these with their innumerable train of primary and secondary Planets . . . . all these glorious Bodies, of vast Bulk and immense Distance, so many Thousands ; in number and bulk so many Millions of Times greater than the Earth, must be allowed in little more than 24 hours to be carried by the rapid motion round us, and dance attendance to this small Atome on which we live, unless the diurnal Motion of the Earth be allowed . . . . These distances of Sun and Stars must needs seem strange to such as have been used to confine the World within less Dimensions. But shall we confine the great Creator to our poor Conceptions. For could not God that made this World that we would thus limit & bound have as easily made it millions of millions of times bigger ".

IV.

The Ladies Diary, published during the first decade of the e ighteenth cen tu ry as, affords a f i t t ing conclusion to this s tudy of a cen tury of almanacs. The fac t t h a t i t was designed for a female audience suggests one of the impor t an t developments t ha t had occurred in one hundred y e a r s - - the growing interest of women in science. At least f rom the t ime of the historic visi t of Margaret , Duchess of Newcastle, to the Roya l Society on May 30, 1667, we m a y t race the growth of this interest . The earlier sat ire on the " learned l ady " broadens to include the " philosophical girl ", and even, specifically, the " scientific girl ". The publ icat ion of Fontenel le ' s Conversations on a Plural i ty of Worlds in 1686 added fuel to the smouldering fire. The microscope became the p layth ing of ladies. The Spectator papers reflect the new interest , bo th in such satirical papers as " The Beaux ' s H e a d " and " The Coquet te 's H e a r t " , and in its more serious articles on popular science. I t is perhaps more t han coincidence t h a t the first number of The Ladies Diary and Mrs. Susannah Centl ivre 's The Bassett-Table appeared in the same year , since bo th of t hem show so clearly the in te res t - -widespread i f no t

45 So far as I c a n learn, The Ladies Diary did n o t appea r unt i l 1705, t h o u g h the re is s o m e cont rad ic t ion be tween two s t a t e m e n t s o f the editor, T h o m a s Tipper . The t l t le -page o f t h e issue o f 1706 declares t h a t th i s i s " t h e Th i rd A l m a n a c k ever P u b l i s h ' d of t h a t k ind ", y e t elsewhere in t h e v o l u m e Tipper speaks o f t he issue o f t he preceding y e a r as t h e first, I h a v e n o t seen a copy of t h e 1705 edition,

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E n g l i s h A l m a n a c s a n d the " N e w A s t r o n o m y " 31

profound--of ladies in the patter of science 46. The form of T h e L a d i e s

D i a r y shows even at a glance how far we have come from the almanacs of the early seventeenth century. The older calendars, prognostications, and general information still appear, hut clearly this series of volumes belongs less to almanac than to periodical literature. Like Wharton's almanacs, T h e L a d i e s D i a r y includes a " chronology " ; bu t - -no doubt to the delight of the sex for whom it was intended--the old device has become " A Brief Chronology of Famous Women" , many of whom, it may be noted, were " learned ladies ". Subtly Thomas Tipper plays to his gallery of ladies, proving that " Women are of a more excellent Nature than Men ". All tha t is lacking, we are led to surmise, is tha t they shall be properly instructed in intellectual matters. A good psycho- logist, Tipper sweetened hard instruction with sugar coating: puzzles, set in one number, were answered in the next ; a romance ran in serial form for several years--one of the earliest examples of serialized fiction. So interesting and diversified is the material contained tha t it is small wonder that the first edition " of several thousands was sold off by New Years ", as Tipper reports in the issue for 1706.

Always, however, the central feature of T h e L a d i e s D i a r y was a scientific essay in which the fair descendants of the Marchioness of Fontenelle were to learn the lessons of astronomy. And Tipper's popular astronomy, be it said at once, was in every respect distinctly " modern ", and in some instances well ahead of that found in other popular literature of the period. The essay in the first edition of 1705, according to a later statement of the editor, was " An Account of the true Motion of the Sun and Moon ". That in the edition of 1709, which has already been discussed, was a very competent discussion of the periodicity of comets. The edition of 1708 contained a long " Essay on the System of the Universe ", illustrated by diagrams of the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems. Tipper leaves no question in the minds of his fair readers which of the systems is the " true " and " undoubted " one ; his ladies were all to be Copernicans. He explains carefully the order of the planets according to both systems, both of which, he acknowledges, " do equally solve the Doctrine of the Spher e ". But the Ptolemaic is introduced only because it is, as Tipper slyly says, " the most easie for Beginners " ; the Copernican, he points out, as he gradually develops it, is clearly " the more rationall ". He proceeds with a full account of the dis- coveries made by Galileo and his followers with the telescope. His is another pman of praise for Galileo " who invented the Telescope ", who first saw with human eyes the satellites of Jupiter, the spots on the moon and sun, and the thousand, thousand stars unknown for many generations.

46 I have discussed certain aspects of the growing interest of women in science in this period in The Mierascope and English Imagination (Smith Colleffe Studies in Modern Languages, 1935, xvi, 37-50).

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32 Professor NIarjorie Nicolson on

Like the long line of his predecessors in the seventeenth century who captured popular fancy, he raises the question of the inhabitability of the moon, a problem which, he says, " still admits of various Disputes, the' believed by the most Ingenious so to be " Is it credible, he asks his audience, that those stars so long hidden from man, those satellites of Jupiter, never seen before Galileo, could have been made, as men so long believed, " for the use of poor Man, from whose Knowledge they were concealed for 5000 Years together ? "47

Many other almanacs of the first decade of the eighteenth century show the same characteristics as those found in The Ladies Diary. They indicate both a wider and a much more intelligent group of readers than do their progenitors a hundred years before. They show by their well written and well reasoned essays that their appeal was to a reading public that considered them seriously. Their science is up to da te ; their editors are keenly aware of occurrences in the intellectual history of their own times. Even the printing and the paper of many of them indicate that these are to be considered books, not mere calendars to be summarily discarded at the end of the year. I f for no other reasons than these, a s tudy of a century of almanacs would be justified, since it shows an almost unnoticed chapter in the development of periodical literature.

From the point of view of the history of science, it is clear that a s tudy of almanacs during this century in which science rapidly developed is of value, since it is possible to date much more accurately various periods in the popular development of the Copernican theory. The present essay pretends to be nothing more than an initial survey of a wide field. Yet in so far as the evidence of eight hundred almanacs may be trusted, it is clear that in the period before 1640 Copernicanism is rare in popular almanacs; that it develops much more rapidly after that date, when its chief adversary was the Tychonic rather than the Ptolemaic theory ; and that it came into its own after 1660, particularly in the first decade of the Restoration, undoubtedly in part because of the influence of the newly established Royal Society. The evidence of the almanacs shows also another fact of importance: so far as popular imagination was concerned, the theories of Copernicus had little or no effect until after the observations of Galileo's telescope as. They remained mere mathematical

~7 The e s say in t h e a l m a n a c for 1710, t he las t y e a r t h a t lies w i th in t h e scope o f th i s s tudy , con ta ins a c o m p e t e n t essay upon t he f ixed s ta rs , which t h e a u t h o r declares " a r e f ound to be I n n u m e r a b l e " .

as I n th i s one respec t m y conclusions differ f rom those o f J o h n s o n in his Astxonomlcal Thought. My in te rp re t a t ion o f t h e pa s sage in G r e s h a m ' s a l m a n a c for 1604 differs f rom J o h n s o n ' s ; a n d I d id no t m y s e l f observe a n y definite Copernican pas sages in B r e t n o r ' s a l m a n a c s before 1611 ; however , J o h n s o n h a d access to some t h a t I did n o t use, a n d u n d o u b t e d l y is correct in his s t a t e m e n t in regard to t h e m . Never the less , such references a re so rare t h a t I still feel just i f ied in m y conclusions, which h a v e to do, no t wi th t h e m a t h e m a t i c i a n a n d as t ronomer , b u t wi th lay imagina t ion .

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English Almanacs and the "New Astronomy " 33

theories, important to the technical astronomer and mathematician, but neither disturbing nor enthralling to the lay mind 49. The evidence of sight, afforded by the telescope, made vivid to the layman what had formerly seemed merely logical and mathematical hypothesis. The acceptance of Copernicus, so far as the general public was concerned, was the result of the work of Galileo. The publication of the Sidereus Nuncius in 1610 marks the beginning of the first chapter; from 1611 a few almanacs, published by the more intelligent and more highly educated editors, show an awareness of the new system and its implica- tions. Immediately after 1640 the interest increases rapidly, largely because of the popularization of Galileo in Wilkins's work. In the next decade Joshua Childrey carries on the popularization of Galileo through his almanacs. Finally, in 1661 Galileo's works begin to be available in English. This is the beginning of the end, for both the Ptolemaic and the Tychonic cosmic theories decline rapidly from this time on, I t is no exaggeration to say that " Copernicanism " in the strict sense at n o time played an important part in the minds of intelligent laymen. No matter how important the theory of Copernicus may have been to the technical astronomer, the real beginning Of " modern " thought, so far as popular imagination is concerned, came about only with the invention of the telescope. I f there must be no god save Copernicus, then truly Galileo is his prophet !

4, T h e evidence o f t h e a l m a n a c s bears ou t t h e content ion , which I h a v e m a d e i n a series o f ar t ic les on t h e genera l sub jec t o f " T h e Telescope a n d I m a g i n a t i o n ". t ha t . so far as the imag ina t ion of n o n - m a t h e m a t i c a l l a y m e n was concerned. " Copern ican ism " as such h a d litt le effect. T h e i m m e d i a t e a n d widespread in te res t evoked by the publ ica t ion o f the Sidereus Nuncius. which is reflected in b o t h prose a n d poet ry , indica tes t h a t t he evidence o f sense was necessa ry before t h e l a y m a n felt t he s t imu la t i on o f t h e new hypo thes i s ; unt i l . like d o u b t i n g T h o m a s . he could see t h e evidence, t he Copernican hypo thes i s r e m a i n e d to h i m a mere logical a n d m a t h e m a t i c a l theory , lacking in rea l i ty a n d appeal to t he imagina t ion .

Ann. of Sci.--Vol. 4, No. 1, Ja

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