Sept. 12. ☿ & 13 ♃s got the Clock removed by Nov. 15 ♀:
89. Dec. 10. first observation of the ☽’s place compared with my lunar Tables in ye 4th book of calculations, pag. 5.
After this I observed the ☾ and planets frequently wth the New Arch; examined the lunar observations, commonly the morning after they were got, and compared them with my Tables, till April, 1692, whereby I saw the faults of the Tables sometimes were near one-third of a degree.
1694. Sept. 1 ♄ Mr. Newton come to visit me; I shewed him these Collations drawn up in 3 large Synopses, and on his request gave him copys of them, he promising me not to impart or communicate them to any body; this promise I required of him because, as I then told him, I made use of some places of the fixed Stars which I had derived from observations made with the Sextant, which were not so exact as those taken with the Murall Arch; that I had now gotten a good stock of observations of the fixed * *s, should make a larger and much exacter Catalogue, that the ☾’s observed places should be derived from the places of the stars in my New Catalogue, and then I would impart them to him, which he approved, and by a Letter of his dated confest.
Nevertheless he imparted what he derived from them both to Dr. Gregory and Mr. H:[246] contra datam fidem.
After he had got the 3 Synopses of ☽’s observations to him he desired more of them, and this caused an Intercourse of letters betwixt us, wherein I imparted to him about 100 more of ye ☽ places, but finding this took up much time, and being now entered in my Rectification of the places of the fixed stars, and very busy in it, I was forced to leave off my correspondence wth him at that time, having found that his corrections of my numbers still gave ye Moon’s places 8 or 9 minutes erroneous, tho’ Dr. G. and Dr. Halley had boasted they would agree wth in 2´ or 3´—I was ill of the stone very oft and had [illegible] ye head ach till Sept. when freed of it by a violent fit of ye stone and my usuall medicine—Deo Laus.
1695 or 1696. Sir I. N.[247] being made an Officer in the Mint came to London. I sometimes visited him there or at his own house in Jermin Street: we continued civil, but he was not so friendly as formerly, because I could
Mr. H. and Dr. G. assertions concerning his corrections of ye Horroccian lunar theorys.
1696. A Correspondence begun wth Mr. Bosseley an Apothecary of Bakewell in Derbyshire and Mr. Luke Leigh a poor Kinsman of Mr. Halleys of the same clan, and myself. Mr. Bosseley wanted observation for correcting the planets places I furnished him, and set him on ♄ and ♃.
Mr. Leigh I hired to calculate the places of the fixed Stars from their Right Ascentions and distances from the Northern Pole determined by myself.