VOL. XXX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 373 



swellings in the groin, which we rarely observe to happen from any other 

 cause. 



I shall give a few more instances of this disease being called the burning, 

 and conclude. In a manuscript I have of the vocation of John Bale to the 

 bishopric of Ossory in Ireland, written by himself, he speaks of Dr. Hugh 

 Weston (who was Dean of Windsor in 1556, but deprived by Cardinal Pole 

 for adultery) as follows, *' At this day is lecherous Weston, who is more 

 " practised in the art of brech burning than all the whores of the stews.'* And 

 again, speaking of the same person, he says, '• He not long ago brent a beggar 

 " in St. Botolph's parish." The same author says of him elsewhere, " He had 

 " been sore bitten with a Winchester goose, and was not yet healed thereof;" 

 which was a common phrase for the pox at that time, because the stews were 

 under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester. Mich. Wood, in his 

 Epistle before Steph. Gardiner's Oration de vera Obedientia, printed at Rhoan, 

 1553, gives another evidence of the burning. And William Bullein, a physi- 

 cian in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in a book he published, called the 

 Bulwark of Defence, &c. printed in 1562, bringing in sickness demanding of 

 health what he should do with a disease called the French pox, health answers, 

 " He would not that any should fishe for this disease; or to be bold when he is 

 " bitten to thynke thereby to be helped, but rather to eschewe the cause of 

 " thys infirmity, and filthy rotten burning of harlots." 



I believe I have now sufficiently proved what I proposed, that the first degree 

 of the venereal disease was very anciently known among us, under the title of 

 burning. I shall reserve my collections, which show that the disease, when it 

 came to be confirmed, was no novelty here in those early times, for a further 

 opportunity. 



Astronomical Observations for the Years 1717 «wc? 1718. N° 357, p- 847. 



These astronomical observations were chiefly made by the Rev. Mr. Pound, 

 at Wansted. Some few by Mr. Derham, Mr. James Bradley, &c. They re- 

 late chiefly to appulses or occultations of the fixed stars, by the planets Saturn, 

 Jupiter, Mars, &c. which are now of no use. An eclipse of the moon 

 was also observed, viz. on Aug. 29, 17 18. The moon was then totally and 

 almost centrally eclipsed. She rose when the eclipse began ; and Mr. Pound 

 observed that at ^^ 2"" 41^ the moon totally immerged in the shadow. At 

 8*^ 48"^ 1 8* she began to emerge out of the shadow. The eclipse ended g^ 52'". 

 The moon's diameter measured 29' 51''. 



