VOL. IX.] PHUOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 185 



Euclid; arithmetic; Theodosius's spherics; trigonometry; practical geometry; 

 mechanics; statics; universal geography; a treatise on the magnet; architecture, 

 and carpentry. — In the second are contained these treatises, viz. of the section 

 of stones, of military architecture, of hydrostatics, fountains and rivers, hy- 

 draulics, navigation, optics, perspective, catoptrics, and dioptrics. — The third 

 contains his treatises ahout music, pyrotechny, astrolabes, dialling, astronomy, 

 calendars, astrology, algebra, the method of indivisibles, and conic sections. 



III. The Sphere of M. Manilius made an English Poem, with Annotations, 

 and an Astronomical Appendix. By Edward Sherburne,* Esq. Lond. 1675, 

 in folio. 



In this ancient and poetical treatise on astronomy, many particulars occur, 

 touching the nature of the heavens and the celestial bodies, that agree with the 

 assertions of some of the most eminent modern astronomers, viz. the fluidity of 

 the heavens, against the Aristotelean solidity of the orbs ; the position of the 

 fixed stars, not in the same concave superficies of the heavens, equally distant 

 from the centre of the universe, but at unequal distances in the ethereal region, 

 some higher, some lower, whence the difference of their apparent magnitudes 

 and splendour ; the fiery nature and substance of the fixed stars, and in conse- 

 quence their being endowed with native lustre, and making so many suns like 

 to our sun ; and the Galaxy's being an aggregate of numberless small stars. 



Of the parts of this poem, their distribution and order, and of the inter- 

 preter's endeavours in explaining it, both in his learned notes and considerable 

 appendix, he observes, that the poem begins with a succinct indication of the 

 origin and progress of arts and sciences, particularly of astronomy; of which 

 last, besides what the translator has noted in his marginal illustrations, he has 

 added for the satisfaction of the more curious, a compendious history, continued 

 down to the age of Manilius ; with a very instructive catalogue of the most 

 eminent astronomers, from the first parent of all arts, and mankind itself, to 

 this present time. That it is continued on with a description of the mundane 

 system, and of the celestial signs and constellations ; the former of which our 

 interpreter has explained according to the various hypotheses, both ancient and 

 modern; the latter he has described by the number of the stars that compose 

 them ; their several denominations in most of the learned languages, and as 

 they are distinguished into profane and sacred figures, according to the differ- 

 ent uranography of the ancient Ethnics, and some late Christian astronomers. 



* This learned writer was born in London, in 1616, and became commissary general of the 

 artillery, in the reign of king Charles the 1st. Continuing true to the royal cause, at the restoration 

 he received a pension and the honour of knighthood : and he died in 1702. He pubHshed translations- 

 of Seneca's tragedies, and a collection cf poems, besides the Sphere of Manilius, above noticed. 



VOL. II. B B 



