LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. 



maximum ut sapientibus cognitum esf] tamen spectaculum m- 

 effabile sapientia prabent et possunt applicari ad probationem 

 omnium occultorum quibus vulgus inexpertum contradicit, et 

 judicat fieri per opera damoniorum, c. 



And thus most humbly desyring your Honour to pardon 

 my boldnesse in writing unto you ; and,, according unto your 

 accustomed clemencie, to accept in good parte this my pre- 

 sumptuous attempte, which only the love I beare to your 

 vertues hathe moved me unto, my trust is that these thinges 

 shall not be alltogyther unpleasaunt unto your honour, other- 

 wyse occupied in greate affayres bothe in the courte and 

 common wealthe, as was Plato with King Dyonisius, Ari- 

 stotle with greate Alexander, and Cicero Senator and Consul 

 of Rome. 



The eternall God and immortall mover of the greate worlde 

 and the lesse, preserve your Honour in healthe and prospe- 

 ritie ! 



From the Folde bysyde Barnet, the first of August 1562. 

 Most bownde to your honour, 



RICHARDE EDEN*. 



THOMAS DIGGES TO LORD BURGHLEYf. 



[MS. Lansd. No. 19, Art. 30. Grig.] 



14th May, 1574. 



Right Honorable, As in your Lordshippes nrame astro- 

 nomicall, for ornament the ffigures of the most notable con- 

 stellations in this our visible hemisphere are pourtrayd, 

 adourned with ther due number of hevenly lights ; so, in 

 the tables adjoyninge, are impressed sutche numbers as de- 

 liver by methode not vulgare the situations and habite which 



* Richard Eden was a philosopher of good repute in his time. He translated 

 into English, treatises on navigation by Cortes and Taisner, the former of which 

 was exceedingly popular and went through several editions. He is also the author 

 of a very curious little book entitled, " A Treatyse of the newe India," 1553, 8vo. 

 At the end of this letter he adds the following sentences in Latin : 1. " Tuae D. 

 addictus, ah'os nonquseropenates." 2. "In secretis et occultis, secretus et occultus 

 esto." This lattter quotation is from Hippocrates. 



f Thomas Digges ranks among the first English mathematicians of the sixteenth 

 century. Although he made no great addition to science, yet his writings tended 

 more to its cultivation in this country, during the reign of Elizabeth, than, per- 

 haps, all those of other writers on the same subjects put together. The work he 

 alludes to in this letter, if a printed one, is probably an edition of his father's 

 work, entitled " Prognostication Everlasting," one of which was published in 1574 

 and contains an addition by himself. 



