C 503 ] 
Ut cum videmus fpeciem primum, candoremquc 
coeli. Cic. TluJ'c. I. 28. 
Solis candor illudrior quam ullus ignis. De Nat , 
Dear. II. if. 
In the fecond or third lad quotation, candor is 
ufed in the fame fenfe as in Hyginus, for brightnefs, 
without regard to colour 3 for fo, I think, he muff 
be underdood, not only to avoid contradiction be-, 
tween him and Ptolemy, but from the name Sirius , 
which it could not be called from its whitenefs, Xei- 
ptos bearing no relation to that, but to brightnefs, 
heat, or drynefs 3 all which the antients fpeak of, as 
properties of the Dog liar. Again, it is brightnefs, 
wherein it exceils all other dars, and not in white- 
nefs for Orion’s foot and others are as white, but 
there is none fo bright as the Dog dar. All this is 
faid, on fuppodtion there was but one remarkable 
liar in the Dog’s head, that in the mouth : for if 
there were two, as Hyginus fays, we are not here 
concerned with either the brightnefs or colour of his 
Sirion, which was in the head, as it certainly faded 
before Ptolemy’s time, who mentions only one, that 
in the mouth, and which, he fays, was then red, 
but is now white. 
To conclude the whole 3 however remarkable and 
without precedent it may be, that fo noted and lading 
a dar as the Great Dog diould have changed its co- 
lour, yet as at lead five different writers affirm it, 
fome fo expredy, and where their fubjeCt required 
them to fpeak particularly about it, it appears to me 
to have been certainly the cafe. If, however, , any- 
one, dartled at the drangenefs of the thing, thinks 
