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228   Mr. Witchell's Remarks on Dr. Shepherd's Preface. 

fisting the payment of taxes; but it was too much for one single arm to achieve; It requires an association as wise and as respectable as yours to carry it into execution. Only threaten the members of Parliament a little more, and advertise for a sufficient number of grievances, and your work will be done. The abolition of rents may, indeed, be attended with a little more difficulty: but the perseverance, as Mr. Wilkes has often assured us, will do everything. Get only the tenth part first, and I will answer for it the other nine parts shall soon be yours. 
I am, Gentlemen, yours, &c. 
Northampton, A Farmer. 
March 30, 1773
 
Mr. URBAN, 
NOT long since the public were presented with a large work, under the title of "Tables for correcting the apparent distance of the Moon and a Star, from the effects of refraction and parallax, published by order of the Commissioners of Longitude;" to which is prefixed a Preface, under the name of the Rev. Dr. Shepherd; giving a very partial, and in some respects false, account of the occasion of that undertaking, which account has since been printed almost verbatim in the last Monthly Review. In order, therefore, to undeceive the world, and do myself justice, I intreat you to give a place in your next Magazine to the ensuing remarks on some particulars in the Preface; which, to render the more unexceptionable, I shall, in imitation of the Rev. Doctor, sign with my name and titles at length, that he and the Rev. Mr. Maskelyne, who will be frequently named upon the occasion, may know to whom they are obliged for the following strictures:--At the same time declaring, that, though I will be always ready to shew due respect to any thing like an answer, which shall appear with the sanction of either of their names, yet I shall by no means think myself obliged to take notice of any thing which may be advanced under any other signature.
 
I shall begin with what is said of a celebrated astronomer now no more, the late M. De la Caille. "Monsieur De la Caille attempted to introduce the lunar method of discovering the longitude, and proposed a plan of calculations of the moon's distance from the sun and fixed stars; but, through the imperfection of his instruments, his success was much less than that method was capable of affording." Can the Doctor persuade himself, that the Ephemerides des Mouvemens Célestes, pour dix années, depuis 1755 jusqu'en 1765, is already out of print?--Does not every one that has seen this know, that what is artfully called, in the above paragraph, "a plan of calculations," is really and truly a plan of a Nautical Ephemeris? of which he was, indeed, the first proposer.--But it would not have answered the purpose of what was to be insinuated in the following words, to have acquainted the reader with this truth; he therefore, proceeds: -"The bringing it into general use was reserved for Mr. Maskelyne, our Astronomer Royal. When he engaged, at the instance of Royal Society, to observe the Transit of Venus, 1761, at St. Helena, both in going and returning he practiced this method; and found he could always discover the Longitude within a degree. On his return from his voyage he published his Journal, under the title of the British Mariner's Guide; in which he suggested the plan of Nautical Ephemeris, and gave a shorter and easier method of correcting the effects of refraction and parallax than any before him."

I shall not enter into the enquiry whether Dr. Shepherd, or Mr. Maskelyne himself, wrote this paragraph, which would have done him so much honour, if the facts had been exactly as stated: but, unluckily for our author, the Lunar method is yet very far from being generally used, and amongst the few who use it, still fewer, if any, make use of Mr. Maskelyne's rules. True it is that he practiced it with good success during his voyage; but it is well known that others had used it at sea long before; for Mr. Benjamin Robins, Captain John Campbell, and Mr. John Bradley, (to name no more) made a great number of observations for this purpose in the years 1749, 1750, 1757, and 1758*, which is so greatly prior to Mr. Maskelyne's Epoch, that it may be questioned whether he knew how to observe at that time. It is likewise true, that he suggested the plan of a Nautical Ephemeris, in the British Mariner's Guide, 

* Vide No. III. IV. V. and XI. p 109 & seq. at the end of Mayer's Tables.      

SEVEN

Remarks on Dr. Shepherd's Preface.-Mythological Critique.   229

SEVEN YEARS AFTER IT HAD BEEN PROPOSED BY M. DE LA CAILLE: but as for his rules, let those speak who have tried them, and let us proceed. "On presenting his book to the board of Longitude, the commissioners WERE SO PLEASED WITH IT, that they adopted his plan; and, in consequence of it, ordered a Nautical Ephemeris to be calculated, which was first published in 1767. Soon after the first publication, the rules that were given for correcting the effects of refraction and parallax in the Appendix being judged difficult for sailors, it was proposed to reduce them to tables. The most expeditious and safe method of calculating them was thought to be by Mr. Lyons's rule, published in the Requisite Tables annexed to the Nautical Ephemeris." In this most extraordinary paragraph there is scarce a word of truth, or a fact but what is misrepresented. Mr. Maskelyne published his Mariner's Guide in 1762; but though he presented it to the Board of Longitude as soon as it was published, it was not thought worthy of their notice till after he became a Commissioner of that Board, by being appointed Astronomer royal, in the beginning of 1765; previous to which the Board had adopted my plan, which was presented Sept. 18 1764*. It is so far from being true, that the tables were proposed "soon after the first publication," that it was indeed just the reverse; the Board's order to me for that purpose (a copy of which is still preserve for the inspection of the curious) being dated July 18, 1765; whereas the first Almznac was not published till the beginning of January 1767, accompanied with the Requisite Tables. But will the reader forbear smiling, when he is informed, that the rules given in the Appendix, and judged too difficult for sailors, are indeed nothing more or less than "Mr. Lyons's most expeditious and safe method published in the Requisite Tables."--But the Rev. Editor was tempted to make use of a circumlocution to avoid a difficulty, that the reader might be led to suppose that the Appendix to the Almanac. and the Requisite Tables, were two different performances, whereas, in truth, they are one and the same, though here disguised under two titles. 

*Vide Annual Register for the year 1764, page 99
GENT. MAG. for May 1773.
4

Having now, Mr. Urban, given you what I think sufficient for one Magazine, I shall at present take my leave with promising, that, if you print this, I will shortly send you a true history of the origin and progress of my application to the Board of Longitude, containing several particulars which the Rev. Editor and his friend Mr. Maskelyne are well acquainted with, though, for certain reasons, they seem to wish to conceal them from the knowledge of the public.
 
I am, Sir,
Your very humble servant, G. WITCHELL, F. R. S. and Head Master of the Royal Academy, Portsmouth. 
Royal Academy, May 17, 1773.

Mr. URBAN,
ON looking into the Antichità d'Ercolano for an explanation of the picture representing the Birth of Telephus, a copy of which is exhibited p. 121 of your last Magazine, I observed the Editors of that work to mention the Goddess Tellus, Cybele the Magna Mater, Ops, and Flora, as one and the same divinity; and, perhaps, too hastily adopted this notion of theirs in the account there given of that print. For Juvenal evidently distinguishes Flora from Cybele:

---ergo omnia Flora Et Cereris licet, et Cybeles aulæa rerelinquas, Satyr. XIV. 262. 

And Ovid abundantly confirms this distinction between them by giving us at large the history of the former:
Chloris eram quæ Flora vocor: corrupta Latino [fono. Nominis est nostri littera Græca Fast. lib. V. 195&feqq. 

This author, indeed, allows Tellus to be the same with Vesta: Vesta eadem est quæ Terra---
Fast. VI. 267. 

---et Tellus Vestaque numen idem est. ibid. v. 460. 
but represents Vesta as the daughter of Ops:

Ex Ope Junonem memorat, Cereremarque creatas

Semine Saturni: tertia Vesta fuit. Ibid. v. 285 
It may further be collected from him, by comparing the following passages together, that Ops and Cybele were only different names for the fame divinity: Protinus inflexo Berecynthiatibiacorau Flabit, et Idææ festa Parentis erunt, Fast. IV. 181.
Da,

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