90 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1725. 



entitled, Abrege de Chronologie de M. le Chevalier Newton, fait per lui 

 meme, et tradiiit sur le Manuscript Anglois. And the bookseller lias prefixed 

 an advertisement, in which he endeavours to defend himself for printing it 

 without my leave, saying, that he had written three letters to me for my leave, 

 and in the third had told me, that he would take my silence for a consent; 

 and that he had also charged one of his friends in London to speak to me, and 

 procure my express answer; and that having long expected my answer, he 

 thought that he might take my silence for a sort of consent, and so procured 

 a privilege, and printed it, and then received my answer from his friend, which 

 was as follows : 



" I remember that I wrote a Chronological Index for a particular friend, 

 on condition that it should not be communicated. As I have not seen the 

 manuscript which you have under my name, I know not whether it be the 

 same. That which I wrote was not at all done with design to publish it. I 

 intend not to meddle with that which hath been given you under my name, 

 nor to give any consent to the publishing of it. " I am, 



London, May I7 , 1725. " Your very humble servant, 



St. Vet. " Isaac Newton." 



The privilege was granted May 21, and registered May 25, Old Style, my 

 letter was dated May 27, and the Chronological Index, or Abridgment, as he 

 calls it, was printed before the arrival of my letter, and kept ever since to be 

 published at a convenient time. The bookseller knew that I had not seen the 

 translation of the Abridgment, and without seeing it could not in reason give 

 my consent to the impression. He knew that the translator was unknown to 

 me, and was against me; and therefore he knew that it was not fit that I 

 should give my consent, nor be asked to do it. He knew that the translator 

 had written a Confutation of the paper translated, and that this Confutation, 

 under the title of Observations, was to be printed at the end of it, and he 

 told me nothing of all this, nor so much as the name of the Observator, and 

 yet asked my consent to the publishing; as if any man could be so foolish as 

 to consent to the publishing of an unseen translation of his papers, made by 

 an unknown person, with a Confutation annexed, and unanswered at their first 

 appearance in public. 



After the recital of my letter, he adds, that the author of the translation, 

 and of the observations upon it, pretends to have an entire certainty that this 

 Index, or Abridgment of Chronology, is the same with the writing owned by 

 me in my letter, and is persuaded that the manuscript, which has been com- 

 municated to him, has been copied from that of this friend, that is, from that 

 of the particular friend abovementioned in my letter. And therefore the 



