Hoxton.
_Mistake as to an Eclipse_ (Vol. iv., p. 58.).--From your
correspondent's mention of it, I should have supposed Casaubon meant
that the astronomers had been mistaken in the _calculation_ of an
eclipse. But the matter is of another kind. In the _lunar_ eclipse of
April 3, 1605, two _observers_, Wendelinus and Lansberg, in different
longitudes, made the eclipse end at times far more different than their
difference of longitudes would explain. The ending of a lunar eclipse,
observed with the unassisted eye, is a very indefinite phenomenon.
The allusion to this, made by Meric Casaubon, is only what the French
call a _plat de son métier_. He was an upholder of the ancients in
philosophy, and his bias would be to depreciate modern successes, and
magnify modern failures. When he talks of the astronomer being "deceived
in the hour," he probably uses the word _hour_ for _time_, as done in
French and old English.