48 



BURNET.— WHISTON. 



[Ch. Ill, 



the southern hemisphere, near the equinoctial line. Butler 

 selected this conceit as a fair mark for his satire, when 

 amongst the numerous accomplishments of Hudibras he 

 says. 



i lie knew the seat of Paradise, 

 Could tell in what degree it lies ; 

 And, as he was disposed, could prove it 

 Below the moon, or else above it.' 



Yet the same monarch, who is said never to have slept 

 without Butler's poem under his pillow, was so great an 

 admirer and patron of Burnet's book, that he ordered it to 

 be translated from the Latin into English. The style of the 

 c Sacred Theory ' was eloquent, and the book displayed 

 powers of invention of no ordinary stamp. It was, in fact, a 

 fine historical romance, as Buffon afterwards declared : but it 

 was treated as a work of profound science in the time of its 

 author, and was panegyrized by Addison in a Latin ode, 

 while Steele praised it in the c Spectator.' 



Wh 



1696. — Another production 



same 



time, was that of Whiston 



New 



World in Six Days, the Universal Deluge, and the 



General Conflagration, as laid 



Holy 



are shown to be perfectly agreeable to Eeason and Philo- 

 sophy.' He was at first a follower of Burnet ; but his faith 

 in the infallibility of that writer was shaken by the declared 



was every presumption in 



opinion of Newton, that there 



astronomy against any former 



the earth's axis. This was a leading: dogma in Burnet's 



system, though not original, for it was borrowed from an 



Italian, Alessandro degli Alessandri, who had suggested it 



in the beginning of the fifteenth century, to account for the 



former 



Place has since 



strengthened the 



La 

 arguments of Newton, 



against the probability of any former revolution of this kind. 



remar 



every one when Whiston first began his cosmological studies; 

 and the principal novelty of his speculations consisted in at- 

 tributing the deluge to the near approach to the earth of one 



