Mr. Joseph Hunter also has brought to notice[29] the claims of Field, whom he designates as the Proto-Copernican of England. He quotes the Address to the Reader prefixed to his first Ephemeris, and dated May 31, 1556, in which he says that, since abler men decline the task, “I have therefore published this Ephemeris of the year 1557, following in it as my authorities, N. Copernicus and Erasmus Reinhold, whose writings are established and founded on true, certain, and authentic demonstrations.” I conceive that this passage, however, only shows that Field had adopted the Copernican scheme as a basis for the calculation of Ephemerides; which, as Mr. De Morgan has remarked, is a very different thing from accepting it as a physical truth. Field, in this same address, makes mention of the errors “illius turbæ quæ Alphonsi utitur hypothesi;” but the word hypothesis is still indecisive.
[29] Ast. Soc. Notices, vol. iii. p. 3 (1833).
As evidence that Field was regarded in his own day as a man who [528] had rendered good service to science, Mr. Hunter notices that, in 1558, the Heralds granted to him the right of using, with his arms, the crest or additional device of a red right arm issuing from the clouds, and presenting a golden armillary sphere.
Recorde’s claims depend upon a passage in a Dialogue between Master and Scholar, in which the Master expounds the doctrine of Copernicus, and the authorities against it; to which the Scholar answers, taking the common view: “Nay, sir, in good faith I desire not to hear such vaine phantasies, so far against common reason, and repugnant to all the learned multitude of wryters, and therefore let it passe for ever and a day longer.” The Master, more sagely, warns him against a hasty judgment, and says, “Another time I will so declare his supposition, that you shall not only wonder to hear it, but also peradventure be as earnest then to credit it, as you now are now to condemne it.” I conceive that this passage proves Mr. De Morgan’s assertion, that Recorde was a Copernican, and very likely the first in England.
In 1555, also, Leonard Digges published his “Prognostication Everlasting;” but this is, as Mr. De Morgan says (Comp. A. 1837, p. 40) a meteorological work. It was republished in 1592 by his son Thomas Digges with additions; and as these have been the occasion of some confusion among those who have written on the history of astronomy, I am glad to be able, through the kindness of Professor Walker of Oxford, to give a distinct account of the editions of the work.
In the Bodleian Library, besides the editions of 1555 and 1592 of the “Prognostication Everlasting,” there is an edition of 1564. It is still decidedly Ptolemaic, and contains a Diagram representing a number of concentric circles, which are marked, in order, as—
“The Earth,
Moone,
Venus,
Mercury,
Sunne,
Mars,
Jupiter,
Saturne,
The Starrie Firmament,
The Crystalline Heavens,
The First Mover,
The Abode of God and the Elect. Here the Learned do approve.” [529]
The third edition, of 1592, contains an Addition, by the son, of twenty pages. He there speaks of having found, apparently among his father’s papers, “A description or modile of the world and situation of Spheres Cœlestiall and elementare according to the doctrine of Ptolemie, whereunto all universities (led thereunto chiefly by the authoritie of Aristotle) do consent.” He adds: “But in this our age, one rare witte (seeing the continuall errors that from time to time more and more continually have been discovered, besides the infinite absurdities in their Theoricks, which they have been forced to admit that would not confesse any Mobilitie in the ball of the Earth) hath by long studye, paynfull practise, and rare invention, delivered a new Theorick or Model of the world, shewing that the Earth resteth not in the Center of the whole world or globe of elements, which encircled and enclosed in the Moone’s orbe, and together with the whole globe of mortalitye is carried yearely round about the Sunne, which like a king in the middest of all, raygneth and giveth lawes of motion to all the rest, sphærically dispersing his glorious beames of light through all this sacred cœlestiall Temple. And the Earth itselfe to be one of the Planets, having his peculiar and strange courses, turning every 24 hours rounde upon his owne centre, whereby the Sunne and great globe of fixed Starres seem to sway about and turne, albeit indeed they remaine fixed—So many ways is the sense of mortal man abused.”
This Addition is headed:
“A Perfit Description of the Cœlestiall Orbes, according to the most ancient doctrine of the Pythagoreans: lately revived by Copernicus, and by Geometrical Demonstrations approved.” Mr. De Morgan, not having seen this edition, and knowing the title-page only as far as the word “Pythagoreans,” says “their astrological doctrines we presume, not their reputed Copernican ones.” But it now appears that in this, as in other cases, the authority of the Pythagoreans was claimed for the Copernican system. Antony a Wood quotes the latter part of the title thus: “Cui subnectitur orbium Copernicarum accurata descriptio;” which is inaccurate. Weidler, still more inaccurately, cites it, “Cui subnectitur operum Copernici accurata descriptio.” Lalande goes still further, attempting, it would seem, to recover the English title-page from the Latin: we find in the Bibl. Astron. the following: “1592 . . Leonard Digges, Accurate Description of the Copernican System to the Astronomical perpetual Prognostication.”
Thomas Digges appears, by others also of his writings, to have been [530] a clear and decided Copernican. In his “Alæ sive Scalæ Mathematicæ,” 1573, he bestows high praise upon Copernicus and upon his system: and appears to have been a believer in the real motion of the Earth, and not merely an admirer of the system of Copernicus as an explanatory hypothesis.