Among the smaller paradoxes of the day is that of the Times newspaper, which always spells it chymistry: but so, I believe, do Johnson, Walker, and others. The Arabic work is very likely formed from the Greek: but it may be connected either with χημεια or with χυμεια.
Lettre d'un gentil-homme de province à une dame de qualité, sur le sujet de la Comète. Paris, 1681, 4to.
An opponent of astrology, whom I strongly suspect to have been one of the members of the Academy of Sciences under the name of a country gentleman,[[264]] writes very good sense on the tremors excited by comets.
The Petitioning-Comet: or a brief Chronology of all the famous Comets and their events, that have happened from the birth of Christ to this very day. Together with a modest enquiry into this present comet, London, 1681, 4to.
A satirical tract against the cometic prophecy:
"This present comet (it's true) is of a menacing aspect, but if the new parliament (for whose convention so many good men pray) continue long to sit, I fear not but the star will lose its virulence and malignancy, or at least its portent be averted from this our nation; which being the humble request to God of all good men, makes me thus entitle it, a Petitioning-Comet."
The following anecdote is new to me:
"Queen Elizabeth (1558) being then at Richmond, and being disswaded from looking on a comet which did then appear, made answer, jacta est alea, the dice are thrown; thereby intimating that the pre-order'd providence of God was above the influence of any star or comet."
The argument was worth nothing: for the comet might have been on the dice with the event; the astrologers said no more, at least the more rational ones, who were about half of the whole.