—From your correspondent's mention of it, I should have supposed Casaubon meant that the astronomers had been mistaken in the calculation of an eclipse. But the matter is of another kind. In the lunar eclipse of April 3, 1605, two observers, Wendelinus and Lansberg, in different longitudes, made the eclipse end at times far more different than their difference of longitudes would explain. The ending of a lunar eclipse, observed with the unassisted eye, is a very indefinite phenomenon.
The allusion to this, made by Meric Casaubon, is only what the French call a plat de son métier. He was an upholder of the ancients in philosophy, and his bias would be to depreciate modern successes, and magnify modern failures. When he talks of the astronomer being "deceived in the hour," he probably uses the word hour for time, as done in French and old English.
M.
"A Posie of other Men's Flowers" (Vol. iv., p. 58.).
—D. Q. is referred to Montaigne, who is the author of the passage; but not having access to his works, I am not able to give a paginal reference.
H. T. E.
Clyst St. George.
Davies' History of Magnetical Discovery (Vol. iv., p. 58.).
—The History, &c., by T. S. Davies, is in the British Annual for 1837, published by Baillière.
M.