CENSUS OF THE SKY SAMPSON* 183 



templation of the heavens does not appear to have formed a part of 

 their national scheme of study : 



We have high towers, the highest about half a mile in height ; and some of 

 them likewise set upon high mountains, so that the vantage of the hill with the 

 tower is in the highest of them 3 miles at least. * * * We use these towers, 

 according to their several heights and situations, for insolation, refrigeration, 

 conservation, and for the view of divers meteors ; as winds, rain, snow, hail, 

 and some of the fiery meteors also. And upon them in some places are dwellings 

 of hermits, whom we visit sometimes and instruct what to observe. 



This passage is very disappointing to an astronomer. These her- 

 mits, with their magnificent equipment, state support, and boards 

 of visitors, were nothing more than meteorologists. 



Or, again, take Shakespeare. It is admittedly difficult to make out 

 what views, if any, Shakespeare held on any subject, and I shall 

 have to quote words put into the mouth of the light-minded Biron 

 in order to make my point; but we know that the farcical figures 

 of his plays are chiefly pedants and j)olicemen; in particular, the 

 pedant moved him to a school-boy ribaldry, and from two or three 

 references I surmise that astronomy, as a science and apart from its 

 poetic incrustations, struck him as yet another field for the preci- 

 osities of his ineffable pedants. " Stud}'," says Biron — 



Study is like the heaven's glorious sun. 



That will not be deep searched with saucy looks. 

 Small have continual plodders ever won. 



Save base authority from others' books. 

 Those earthly godfathers of heaven's lights 



That give a name to every fixed star 

 Have no more profit of their shining nights 



Than those that walk and wot not what they are. 

 Too much to know is to know naught but fame ; 

 And every godfather can give a name. 



That is all there is in it — giving names; science is nominalism. 

 We may brush it aside, but, after all, it is a painfully shrewd hit 

 against science. 



Now, there was a very considerable and extended astronomy in 

 Shakespeare's and Bacon's days. Copemicus's work De Revolu- 

 tionibus was 50 years old. It was perhaps not much read, but for a 

 century before de\dous voyages, lasting for months or years, to North 

 and South America, to South Africa, and to India had made indis- 

 pensable a working knowledge and command of its practice, and 

 with the practice grew up a scientific interest. 



In 1578 Mr. John Winter passed through the Straits of Magellan 

 " in a good and newe shippe called the ' Elizabeth,' of 80 tonnes in 

 burthen," as one of Sir Francis Drake's consorts. Neither the place 

 nor the vessel can have been favorable to scientific abstraction, jet he 

 determined his longitude there from an eclipse of the moon. The 



