on * Newton and Flamsteed” in the Quarterly Review. 217 
Principia in 1713, (the year before the sacrifice to Heavenly 
Truth), the impossibility of noticing Flamsteed in any man- 
ner which would not disgust and irritate him, must have been 
very clear. Newton appears therefore only to have acted with 
common prudence and forbearance in avoiding such notice as 
much as possible. Flamsteed is not quoted as authority for 
the Lunar Theory, of which he rejected a great part. (See 
Account of Flamsteed, pp. 304, 305, 309.) His observations 
of the comet are quoted as the best. In several other points, 
as the observations of the satellites of Jupiter, Newton refers 
to published observations of other astronomers, instead of the 
private communications of Flamsteed. It was proper to rea- 
son upon published rather than upon unpublished observa- 
tions; and the terms on which Flamsteed had put himself 
with Newton were probably felt by the great philosopher to 
be such as rendered it undesirable to make use of the private 
letters of his perverse correspondent. 
So far as the published letters of Flamsteed prove anything, 
they show, that not only he did not feel himself injured by 
not being mentioned in those parts of the second edition of 
the Principia which refer to the moon, but that he entertained 
such an opinion of the work as would have made him angry 
at being so introduced. Thus, soon after the publication, he 
says, (p. 305,) ** I think his new Principia worse than the 
old.” And (p. 309) he writes to his friend Abraham Sharp, 
«JT have determined to lay these crotchets of Sir Isaac New- 
ton wholly aside; and I think if you purchase not the new 
edition of his book [of which the price was 18s.] you will be 
at least 17s. a saver by it; for I know not whether all the 
alterations and additions be worth 12d.” 
So much for the wrong done to Flamsteed by not being 
sufficiently mentioned in the second edition of the Principia. 
I have been told also that I ought to have noticed more par- 
ticularly some of the extravagant expressions of assumed au- 
thority and intemperate accusation which occur in the note 
in the Quarterly Review: but as these can affect only the 
character of the anonymous reviewer, I do not see how it can 
be worth while to make them the subject of remark. 
I will again leave it to the reader to decide, after looking at 
the passages I have just produced, whether the writer of the 
note, in appealing to “the whole tenour of the book,” as 
proving that Flamsteed comprehended and accepted Newton’s 
Theory, was not asserting at random, and taking the chance 
of the impression he might produce, without having read the 
work which was under his review, or understanding the ques- 
tion on which he undertook to pronounce. 
