410 HISTORY OF FORMAL ASTRONOMY. 



afterwards suggests to his pupil the newer sys- 

 tem: 



. . . . What if seventh to these 



The planet earth, so stedfast though she seem, 



Insensibly three different motions move ? 



Par. Lost, B. viii. 



Milton's leaning however, seems to have been 

 for the new system ; we can hardly believe that he 

 would otherwise have conceived so distinctly, and 

 described with such obvious pleasure, the motion 

 of the earth : 



Or she from west her silent course advance 

 With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps 

 On her soft axle, while she paces even, 

 And bears thee soft with the smooth air along. 



Par. Lost, B. viii. 



Perhaps the works of the celebrated Bishop 

 Wilkins tended more than any others to the dif- 

 fusion of the Copernican system in England, since 

 even their extravagancies drew a stronger attention 

 to them. In 1638, when he was only twenty-four 

 years old, he published a book entitled The Dis- 

 covery of a New World; or, a Discourse tending 

 to prove that it is probable there may be another 

 habitable World in the Moon ; with a Discourse 

 concerning the possibility of a passage thither. The 

 latter part of his subject was, of course, an obvious 

 mark for the sneers and witticisms of critics. Two 

 years afterwards, in 1640, appeared his Discourse 

 concerning a new Planet ; tending to prove flint it 



