ound
to have any connection with the sublime science of astronomy. [This is
pp. 97-180 of some other work, being all I have seen.]

These works are all by Sampson Arnold Mackey,[588] for whom see _Notes and
Queries_, 1st S. viii. 468, 565, ix. 89, 179. Had it not been for actual
quotations given by one correspondent only (1st S. viii. 565), that journal
would have handed him down as a man of some real learning. An extraordinary
man he certainly was: it is not one illiterate shoemaker in a thousand who
could work upon such a singular mass of Sanskrit and Greek words, without
showing {257} evidence of being able to read a line in any language but his
own, or to spell that correctly. He was an uneducated Godfrey Higgins.[589]
A few extracts will put this in a strong light: one for history of science,
one for astronomy, and one for philology:

"Sir Isaac Newton was of opinion that 'the atmosphere of the earth was the
sensory of God; by which he was enabled to see quite round the earth:'
which proves that Sir Isaac had no idea that God could see through the
earth.

"Sir Richard [Phillips] has given the most rational explanation of the
cause of the earth's elliptical orbit that I have ever seen in print. It is
because the earth presents its watery hemisphere to the sun at one time and
that of solid land the other; but why has he made his Oxonian astonished at
the coincidence? It is what I taught in my attic twelve years before.

"Again, admitting that the Eloim were powerful and intelligent beings that
managed these things, we would accuse _them_ of being the authors of all
the sufferings of Chrisna. And as they and the constellation of Leo were
below the horizon, and consequently cut off from the end of the zodiac,
there were but eleven constellations of the zodiac to be seen; the three at
the end were wanted, but those three would be accused of bringing Chrisna
into the troubles which at last ended in his death. All this would be
expressed in the Eastern language by saying that Chrisna was persecuted by
those Judoth Ishcarioth!!!!! [the five notes of exclamation are the
author's]. But the astronomy of those distant ages, when the sun was at the
south pole in winter, would leave five of those Decans cut off from our
view, in the latitude of twenty-eight degrees; hence Chrisna died of {258}
wounds from five Decans, but the whole five may be included in Judoth
Ishcarioth! for the phrase means 'the men that are wanted