200 PREFACE TO 



tember 1604. It is said to have been brighter, when 

 first seen, than Jupiter; 1 and though its brightness di 

 minished afterwards, it was distinctly visible for more 

 than a year. It attracted so much attention as to be 

 made the subject of three lectures of a popular char 

 acter, given by Galileo to crowded audiences ; and it 

 is difficult to believe either that Bacon did not know 

 of it (he being then 44 years old, and busy at the time 

 with the Advancement of Learning, and quite under 

 standing the significance of the phenomenon ;) or that, 

 if he did, he could have forgotten to mention it when 

 speaking of the other. Accordingly, in the Descriptio 

 Globi Intellectualis, which we know to have been writ 

 ten about the year 1612, the passage which I have just 

 quoted appears in a new form. &quot; Id enim [sc. admi- 

 randas in coelo accidere mutationes atque insolentias] 

 perspicitur in cometis sublimioribus, iis nimirum qui et 

 figuram stellar induerunt absque coma, neque solum ex 

 doctrina parallaxium supra lunam collocati esse pro- 

 bantur, sed configurationem etiam certain et constan- 

 tem cum stellis fixis habuerunt, et stationes suas ser- 

 varunt, neque errones fuerunt ; quales astas nostra non 

 semel vidit ; primo in Cassiopea, iterum non ita pridem 

 in OphvucJw.&quot; 



That when Bacon wrote the tenth Cogitatio he had 

 not heard of the appearance of this second new star, 

 may be assumed with considerable confidence. The 

 only question is whether such a phenomenon could 

 have been long known to the astronomers of his time, 

 without his hearing of it ; of which I can only say 

 that it seems unlikely, and that, in the absence of all 



1 Maestlin. quoted in the Life of Galileo, Library of Useful Knowledge 

 p. 16. 



