the face at the beginning of the paragraph to which the author
refers?

"C'est donc pour arriver a ce parallelisme, ou pour le conserver, que
Copernic a cru devoir recourir a ce mouvement egal et oppose qui detruit
l'effet qu'il attribue si gratuitement au premier, de deranger le
parallelisme."[291]

Parallelism at any price, is the motto of Copernicus: you need not pay so
dear, is the remark of Kepler.

The opinions given by Sir G. Lewis about the effects of modern astronomy,
which he does not understand and singularly undervalues, will now be seen
to be of no authority. He fancies that--to give an instance--for the
determination of a ship's place, the invention of chronometers has been far
more important than any improvement in astronomical theory (p. 254). Not to
speak of latitude,--though the omission is not without importance,--he
ought to have known that longitude is found by the difference between what
o'clock it is at Greenwich and at the ship's place, at {167} one absolute
moment of time. Now if a chronometer were quite perfect--which no
chronometer is, be it said--and would truly tell Greenwich mean time all
over the world, it ought to have been clear that just as good a watch is
wanted for the time at _the place of observation_, before the longitude of
that place with respect to Greenwich can be found. There is no such watch,
except the starry heaven itself: and that watch can only be read by
astronomical observation, aided by the best knowledge of the heavenly
motions.

I think I have done Sir G. Lewis's very excellent book more good than all
the reviewers put together.

I will give an old instance in which literature got into confusion about
astronomy. Theophrastus,[292] who is either the culprit or his historian,
attributes to Meton,[293] the contriver of the lunar calendar of nineteen
years, which lasts to this day, that his solstices were determined for him
by a certain Phaeinus of Elis on Mount Lycabettus. Nobody else mentions
this astronomer: though it is pretty certain that Meton himself made more
than one appointment with him for the purpose of observing solstices; and
we may be sure that if either were behind his time, it was Meton. For
_Phaeinus Helius_ is the shining sun himself; and in the astronomical poet
Aratus[294] we read about the nineteen years of the shining sun:

[Greek: Enneakaideka kukla phaeinou eelioio].[295]

Some man of letters must have turned Apollo into Phaeinus of Eli