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LVIII. Letter to Mr. Arthur Aikin frojn 

 Dr. Thornton. 



]May 20, 1804.. 

 __, SIR, JvJo. I, Hind-street, Manchester-square. 



JL HERE is no man on earth fonder of the liberty of the 

 press than I am: but when fools or blockheads presume to 

 criticise ; what was before a blessing becomes a nuisance, 

 misleading for a certain tin)e the public judgment, and 

 wounding the honest feelings of authors. Like Linnaeus, 

 I would have silently borne the scoffs and derisions of the 

 mimics, as he calls them, of mankind : but when a man of 

 your character in life stands publicly forward as the editor 

 of a review, in which you accuse me of an ignorance the 

 most gross, and endeavour to explain the manner, by a pro- 

 phetic vision, how I came to have invented an unheard of 

 planet, openly declaring " that no astronomical book ever 

 mentioned a satellite to Venus," I have esteemed it my duty 

 to retort the accusation, and appeal to the candid decision of 

 the public. I shall quote your own words : — " In imitation of 

 the divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, who 

 frequently treated their subjects first negatively and then 

 positively, he gives the systems of those philosophers who 

 have formed what he deems erroneous opinions on the sub- 

 ject. These are Dr. Darwin, Buft'on, and Will. Wliiston. 

 Dr. Darwin's hypothesis of the original formation of suns, 

 gives hiin an opportunity of laying before his readers a con- 

 cise view of astronomy, from which we learnt, to our inex- 

 pressihle surprise, " that Venus as well as our earth has its 

 satellite, and that this satellite of Venus was discovered in 

 the last century." Had Dr. Thornton claimed this disco- 

 very himself, the authority of so great a man would have been 

 indisputable; and we must have admitted it as a fact, even 

 though the new secondarv planet should still continue to 

 elude the sight of Dr. Herschel, of the astronomer royal, 

 and of every other astronomer in the world. J'-ut as we are 

 told that the discovery was made in the last century, it must 

 have been known to others as well as to himself; and as no 

 trace of it is to be found in any professed treatise of astro- 

 nomy, we may be allowed to doubt on the subject, and to 

 suspect that Dr. Thornton has asserted what is not true. 

 Long did we puzzle ourselves with attempting to investi- 

 gate the source of the error; and so continually did it agi- 

 tate our minds, that for some time we were deprived of our 

 nightly rest ; and we know not what might have been the 

 effect upon our health and spirits, or whether we should 

 ever have been equal to the severe task of writing this review^ 



if 



