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THE LIFE OF

!The Speech.

L OOKING with respectful Awe on this great and eminent Auditory,while here, I spy some of the politer Genii os our Age ; here, some osour Patricians j there many choicely learned in the Mathematical Sciences, andevery where, those that are more Judges than Auditors; I cannot, but with ju-venile Blushes, betray that which I must apologize for. And indeed I mustseriously fear, lest I should appear immaturely covetous of Reputation, indaring to ascend the Chair of Astronomy, and to usurp that big Word osDemonstration, Dt co ; with which (while the humble Orator insinuates only)the imperious Mathematician commands Assent: When it would better havesuited the Baslifulness of my Years, to have worn out more Lujlra in a Pfithagorean Silence.

I must confess I had never design’d any Thing further, than to exercise m/Radius in private Dust, unless those had inveigh’d against my Sloth and Re-missness, with continual but friendly Exhortations, whom I may accountthe great Ornaments of Learning and our Nation, whom to obey hwith me sacred, and who , with the Suffrages of the worthy Senators ofthis honourable City, had thrust me into the publick Sand. That accord-ing to my slender Abilities, I might explain what hath been deli ver'd toby Ancients, concerning the Motions and Appearances of the Celestial Bodies,and likewise what hath been found out of new by the Moderns; for W chave no barren Age ; and now in this Place, I could point to Inventors ; P'venters , a Title so venerable of old, that it was Merit enough to confer on Me* 1Patents of Divinity , and perpetual Adoration.

Nor need I therefore to so knowing an Auditory, relate to what End, Otpraise Hercules (as they fay) by troubling you with a tedious Encomium esAstronomy: We shall leave this to the Dutch Writers, whose swelling Title-Pages proclaim that their Books are useful to Theologians, Philosophers,Philologers, Mathematicians, Grammarians, and who not ?—It were stive-lous to tell you, how much Astronomy elevates herself above other Scien-ces, in as much as her Subject, the beauteous Heavens (infinite in Exten-sion, pure and subtile, and sempiternal in Matter, glorious in their starry Ot'naments, of which every one affords various Cause of Admiration, most ts-pid, yet most regular, most harmonious in their Motions, in every This#'to a wife Considerer, dreadful and majestick) doth precede either the l°' v )or the uncertain Subjects of other Sciences : It were pedantick, to tell you $the Affinity of our Souls to Heaven, of our erected Countenances, given 1,5on purpose for Astronomical Speculations; or to acquaint you, that pMcommended it to his Commonwealth’s-Men, while he fays, « Ex ejuftA" difiiplinis, injlrumentum quoddam ammi expurgatur , reviviscitque ,

" antea ex aliis fiudtis inseSlum, occœcatumque jucrat, solo cnim hoc inspirit" veritas Tho truly elsewhere he gives us this great Truth — “

" madvertijli eos , qui natura mathematici sunt , ad onmes fere difiiplinas" stores apparere ; qut autem tngenio hebetiores sunt , Ji in hoc erudiaP^-" ehamsi nihil amplius utilitatis asscquantut\ seipfis tauten tngeniqfiores" file re." I might be too verbose should I instance this particularly in str-ing how much the Mathematical Wits of this Age have excell’d the An-cients, (who piere’d but to the Bark and Outside of Things) in handlEparticular Disquisitions of Nature, in clearing up History, and fixing CP° ^nology: For, Mathematical Demonstrations being built upon thenable Foundations of Geometry and Arithmetick, are the only Truths, tcin sink into the Mind of Man, void of all Uncertainty; and all other 0

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