The Ghost of Flamstead

Abstract

I OUGHT earlier to have thanked this venerated shade for a communication which will enable me to correct (at some future time) an omission in my treatise on the Sun. Let me hasten to assure him (or it), however, that, the omission has been in no way connected with those “queer notions of honour, and justice, and fairness,” which he conceives to be rife in our times. Why should I seek to wrong the honoured dead? And who would gain in this case by the injustice? The present Astronomer Royal? Surely no. To add this small matter to his real claims to our esteem would be To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, And throw a perfume on the violet. Neither, I am sure, has any other writer who has overlooked Flamstead's claims, desired to do him injustice. On this point I would merely remark, “Rest, rest, perturbed spirit.”