THE ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF NEWTON. 673 



a few months earlier, the same views were upheld as unhesitatingly, if 

 not so systematically. Its author was more ingenious than fortunate. 

 What is most certainly known of his life is its unhappy end. Robert 

 Recorde was an eminent physician as well as an able mathematician. 

 In his medical capacity he is believed to have been attached to the 

 households of Edward VI. and Mary, and he undoubtedly died in a 

 debtor's prison, the year of Elizabeth's accession. He has the merit of 

 having introduced algebra or, as he termed it, " Cossike Practice " 

 into England in a book named " The "Whetstone of Witte," represent- 

 ed by Scott as constituting the sole literary possession of old Trapbois 

 the miser, and as inspiring, by its very title, the young Lord of Glen- 

 varloch with such a lively aversion that not even the desolation of a 

 night in Alsatia could induce him to seek solace in its pages. The 

 same writer's " Castle of Knowledge " might have proved a more effica- 

 cious remedy for ennui. It is an astronomical dialogue, the progress 

 of which is enlivened by some touches of quaint satire. We take from 

 it the following extract, noteworthy as (so far as we know) the first 

 printed reference in the English language to the memorable innovation 

 of the Canon of Frauenbur : 



i t> 



Master. Copernicus, a man of great learning, of much experience, and of 

 wonderful diligence in observation, hath renewed the opinion of Aristarchus 

 Saraius, and affirmeth that the earth not only moveth circularly about his own 

 centre, but also may be, yea and is, continually out of the precise centre thirty- 

 eight hundreth thousand miles ; but because the understanding of that contro- 

 versy dependeth on profounder knowledge than there in this introduction may 

 be uttered conveniently, I will let it pass till some other time. 



Scholar. Nay, sir, in good faith, I desire not to hear such vain phantasies, so 

 far against common reason, and repugnant to the consent of all the learned mul- 

 titude of writers, and therefore let it pass for ever, and a day longer. 



Master. You are too young to be a good judge in so great a matter : it pass- 

 eth far your learning, and tbeir's also that are much better learned than you, to 

 improve (disprove) his supposition by good argument, and therefore you were 

 best to condemn nothing that you do not well understand ; but another time, as 

 I said, I will so declare his supposition, that you shall not only wonder to hear 

 it, but also peradventure be as earnest then to credit it, as you are now to con- 

 demn it.* 



The objurgations of Giordano Bruno, on the occasion of his visit to 

 Oxford in 1583, made, w r e can infer, but little impression on the hard- 

 headed English Peripatetics of the time, and the Copernican system 

 seems to have receded rather than advanced in credit during the last 

 twenty years of the century. " How prove you," asks Blundevile in 

 his "Exercises" (published in 1594), "that there is but one world?" 

 " By the authority," he unhesitatingly replies, " of Aristotle ! " and the 

 inertia of his ignorance is noways shaken by his own admission that 



* "The Castle of Knowledge," p. 165. London, 1556. Quoted also by Professor De 

 Morgan, "Companion to the British Almanac for 1S37," p. 36. 

 vol. xvii. 43 



