SEQUEL TO COPERNICUS. 411 



is probable our Earth is one of the Planets : in 

 which he urged the reasons in favour of the helio- 

 centric system ; and explained away the opposite 

 arguments, especially those drawn from the sup- 

 posed declarations of Scripture. Probably a good 

 deal was done for the establishment of those 

 opinions by Thomas Salusbury, who was a warm 

 admirer of Galileo, and published, in 1661, a trans- 

 lation of several of his works bearing upon this 

 subject. The mathematicians of this country, in 

 the seventeenth century, as Napier and Briggs, 

 Horrox and Crabtree, Oughtred and Ward, Wallis 

 and Wren, were probably all decided Copernicans. 

 Kepler dedicates one of his works to Napier, and 

 Ward invented an approximate method of solving 

 Kepler's problem, still known as "the simple ellip- 

 tical hypothesis." Horrox wrote, and wrote well, 

 in defence of the Copernican opinion, in his Kep- 

 lerian Astronomy defended and promoted, com- 

 posed (in Latin) probably about 1635, but not 

 published till 1673, the author having died at the 

 age of twenty-two, and his papers having been lost. 

 But Salusbury's work was calculated for another 

 circle of readers. " The book," he says in the intro- 

 ductory address, "being, for subject and design, 

 intended chiefly for gentlemen, I have been as care- 

 less of using a studied pedantry in my style, as 

 careful in contriving a pleasant and beautiful im- 

 pression." In order, however, to judge of the 

 advantage under which the Copernican system now 



