2"«S.VII. Jan. 1.'59.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



13 



'• smale" to " small." The only error, if it can 

 be called one, is the addition of a final " e " to 

 " witnessyng." Mr. Bagster informs me that he 

 has not more than half-a-dozen left, and that he 

 does not intend to reprint it. Was it worth while 

 to disturb the confidence of the public in so valu- 

 able a reprint upon such trumpery allegations ? 

 Mr. Gotcii bears testimony, in which I heartily 

 join, to the accuracy of Mr. Bagster's reprint of 

 Coverdale's Bible ; and after the test he has ap- 

 plied to his Tyndale's Testament, it may be es- 

 teemed, for all purposes of Biblical research, as 

 worthy of full dependance for verbal accuracy. 

 By the reproduction of these literary monu- 

 ments, the world may form a correct estimate of 

 the learning, the fearless piety, the peculiar 

 adaptedness, of these two great JBritish apostles 

 to introduce to their country " the holy ora- 

 cles." Of the two, Tyndale was the boldest 

 champion: he rose to the glory of martyrdom, 

 and he justly bears the palm. All those who 

 knew Mr. Anderson knew a most upright man 

 who was incapable of wilful error. He was in a 

 distressing state of ill health when he wrote The 

 Annals. He was most probably indebted to friends 

 for copies of documents and extracts, which un- 

 fortunately prove to have been very inaccurately 

 made. Nothing, however, can justify such whole- 

 sale errors as abound throughout that work. 



George Offob. 

 Hackney. 



I hasten to correct an error into which I have 

 been unintentionally led, respecting Mr. Offor's 

 connexion with the reprint of Tyndale. Mr. 

 Offor informs me that he was not the editor 

 of the reprint, and did not see the text till it 

 was finished ; and that his part in the work was 

 the Memoir of Tyndale which is prefixed. I 

 cannot but wish that the title-page and the ad- 

 vertisement which follows it had been more ex- 

 plicit, since I suppose that every one who looks 

 into the volume would have concluded, as I did, 

 without the slightest hesitation, that the whole 

 was done at least under Mr. Offor's supervi- 

 sion. F. W. GoTCH. 



Baptist College, Bristol. • 



LEXBLLS COMET. 



(2-"* S. vi. 459.) 



The comet inquired after is that which was dis- 

 covered, June 14, 1770, by Messier, and which, 

 from Lexell's calculations, is generally called 

 " Lexell's Comet." " Cette coroete," says Pingre, 

 "a eu cela de particulier, qu'elle a beaucoup 

 tourmentc ceux qui ont entrepris d'en calculer 

 I'orbite : " as if such a proceeding were quite ex- 

 ceptional on the part of a comet. But Pingre 



had dealt with comets until his taste resembled 

 that of the German who drank aquafortis because 

 alcohol had ceased to tickle his palate. 



After several attempts to succeed in finding an 

 orbit to represent the observations, both Lexell 

 and Pingre found that an orbit of 5^ years would 

 serve the purpose. It occasioned much surprise 

 at the time that such a comet should never have 

 been seen before : and it has never been seen 

 since. But a very probable conjecture has been 

 made on the Cause of both circumstances. 



In May, 1767, the comet was 58 times nearer 

 to Jupiter than to the Sun : so that the ele- 

 ments of its orbit would undergo large altera- 

 tion from the action of Jupiter, and the comet 

 may have been changed from one of long period 

 to one of 5| years. The return of 1776 must ne- 

 cessarily have been invisible, from the position of 

 the earth. In August, 1779, the orbit oi 5\ years 

 continuing, the comet must have come 491 times 

 nearer to Jupiter than to the Sun ; that is, so as 

 to be nearer to Jupiter than the fourth satellite. 

 Very possibly, then, the action of Jupiter may 

 have restored the comet to one of long period. 

 This approach towards Jupiter is not an observed 

 fact, but a necessary deduction from the observa- 

 tions of 1770, supposing the orbit of that time to 

 have continued unaltered. It should be added 

 that this same comet was, in July, 1770, not more 

 than seven times the moon's distance from the 

 earth : had its mass been anything but excessively 

 small, both the earth's orbit and the moon's orbit 

 would have shown appreciable changes. Seie 

 Pingre's Cometographie, vol. ii. pp. 85 — 90. ; and 

 Herschel's Outlines of Astronomy, §585. "Ju- 

 piter," says Sir John Herschel, " seems by some 

 strange fatality to be constantly in the way of 

 comets, and to be a perpetual stumbling-block to 

 them." Accordingly, I add, they are just as much 

 in the way of Jupiter, to whom they are certainly 

 no stumbling-block at all. So far as any conjec- 

 ture can be rationally formed from observed facts, 

 the notion of a comet striking the earth resembles 

 the notion of a thin cloud striking Mont Blanc. 

 If the comet be what, from many appearances, 

 and many results of gravitation, it may be reason- 

 ably taken to be, the thing to be feared is, that a 

 large addition of Heaven knows what gas to the 

 upper regions of the atmosphere might give some 

 epidemic disorder. A. Dk Morgan. 



A. A. is informed that Lexell's comet was twice 

 "entangled" amongst the satellites of Jupiter, 

 viz. between January and May, 1767, and be- 

 tween June and October, 1779. He is referred 

 to The Comets, by J. R. Hind, 1852 (p. 89.), for 

 a full account of this cometary romance. He may 

 also consult The Comet of 1556, by the same au- 

 thor, p. 32. C. Mansfield Inglebt, 



Birmingham. 



