52 LETTERS ON SCIENTIFIC SUBJECTS. 



tion, which some of my learned friends have seen almost two 

 years agone : ad quern, or juxta quern, or quod dirigent con- 

 siderationes positas. Touching your two transcripts, I un- 

 derstand the fairer of them to be Mr. Warden's own hand- 

 writing : for which I request you to return him from me many 

 dutiful thanks ; withal signifying unto him that I had not so 

 little wit or manners either, as to wish himself to be at such 

 pains : but used his name in my letter only because I supposed 

 he knew best whom to employ about it. Concerning the 

 point in controversy about the confounding or dividing of two 

 of Hipparchus his vernal observations, I pray you return my 

 commendations to your mathematic reader, whose I under- 

 stand the other transcript to be, w r ith many thanks likewise 

 for his pains. And whereas in the marginal notes of your 

 manuscript there is one against the vernal observations, which 

 either I had not before marked, or else have since forgotten, 

 namely, pro prima est secunda vel transposita : I desire him 

 to send me word whether that appear to be of the same hand 

 and antiquity with the other. Again, whereas in his tran- 

 script against those words, et post annum, transcribed in the 

 text, but afterward blotted out again, there is moreover ad- 

 joined this marginal note, et post annum deleantur, whether 

 that be the ancient censure of either of All Souls' copies, the 

 manuscript or the printed, or his own censure : because all 

 those three words are quite left out of them both without any 

 marginal note or censure at all. In a word, because the un- 

 certainty which of the three copies he took for the ground of 

 his transcript breeds some confusion to mine understanding 

 of his diverse readings in the margin : I request him to be at 

 so much the more pains as to transcribe all that concerns the 

 same one or two vernal observations, being not half a score 

 lines, from et post hoc, to fere per 5 horas, word for word, 

 distinctly and severally out of all three copies, with such 

 marginal notes as each of them have : and thereto to add the 

 fourth, which I understand to be in Sir Henry Saville's Ma- 

 thematic Library, and which, I doubt not, he may easily ob- 

 tain in regard of his acquaintance with Mr. Briggs. And to 

 him I desire you both to have me heartily commended, thank- 

 ing him for Vieta his Gregorian Calendar, which I received 

 from him a se'nnight since : touching which I purpose, God 

 willing (if my building hinder me not over much), to write 

 unto him ere long. Meanwhile it is not the least cause of 

 my writing unto you at this time, to signify unto him that I 

 have received it, and good content with and by it. 



And thereupon I request you all three, namely Mr. Briggs, 

 together with Mr. Miller (for that I have been given to un- 



