322 DESCRIPTIO GLOBI INTELLECTUALS. 



obtenebrationis manet testimonium illud insigne Vir- 

 gil ii : 



Ille etiam extincto miseratus Caesare Romam, 

 Cum caput obscura nitidum ferrugine texit, 

 Impiaque aeternara timuerunt secula noctem. 1 



Varronis vero, hominis in antiquitate peritissimi, nar- 

 ratio quae invenitur apud Augustinum 2 de stella Ven- 

 eris, illam scilicet tempore Ogygis regis mutavisse 

 colorera, magnitudinem, et figuram, dubiae fidei esse 

 potuit, ni simile eventum celebri spectaculo aetate nos- 

 tra MDLXXVIII recurrisset. Nam turn quoque per an- 

 num integrum novatio facta est memorabilis in stella 

 Veneris, quae conspiciebatur magnitudine et splendore 

 insolitis, rubedine Martem ipsum superabat, et figuram 

 ssepius mutabat, facta quandoque triangularis, quando 

 que quadrangularis, etiam rotunda, ut in ipsa massa et 

 substantia prorsus pati videretur. 3 Quin etiam stella 



1 Virg. Georg. i. 469. See Pliny, ii. 30., and the other authorities men- 

 tioned in Heyne's Virgil ad loc. 



2 St. August. De Civit. Dei, xxi. 8. 



8 Patricius was Bacon's authority for this story. After mentioning what 

 Augustine repeats from Varro, he goes on thus: " Quse ressevo etiam nostro 

 accidit anno M. D LXX. vin. Romaeque visum id est die xvi Novembris. 

 In Germania vero die Decembris xxvi. Perque totum eum annum. sub 

 vesperam, sole nondum merso visa est magnitudine insolita, figura vero 

 modo triangula, modo quadrangula, modo rotunda, et splendore maximo, 

 et rubedine majore quam sitMartis rubedo. Cursum tamen non mutavit." 

 Patricius, Pancosmia, p. 107. This is given as evidence against the Aris- 

 totelian doctrine of the immutability of the heavens; and that it is not 

 mentioned by Galileo and the other writers who so constantly refer to the 

 new stars in Cassiopeia and Serpentarius for similar evidence seems to show 

 that the story has no other foundation than that Venus was then visible be- 

 fore sunset. The story would, if true, have been a better proof of a change 

 in the superlunary heavens than the new stars, seeing that it could not be 

 said that Venus was a merely sublunary meteor. So wonderful a fact 

 ought not to have been quoted on the authority of a loose and somewhat 

 rhetorical writer like Patricius. [We must not forget however that this is 

 an unfinished work, not published, nor prepared, nor perhaps intended, for 

 publication \)y the writer. J. S.] 



It is possible that Patricius' s story may be connected with the phenomenon 



