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sums which have been laid out upon operas without skill or conduct, and to no other purpose but to suspend or vitiate our understandings, been disposed this way, we should now perhaps have had an engine so formed as to strike the minds of half a people at once in a place of worship with a forgetfulness of present care and calamity, and an hope of endless rapture and joy and hallelujah hereafter.

When I am doing this justice, I am not to forget the best mechanic of my acquaintance, that useful servant to science and knowledge, Mr. John Rowley; but I think I lay a great obligation on the public by acquainting them with his proposals for a pair of new globes. After his preamble he promises in the said proposals that,

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IN THE CELESTIAL GLOBE,

Care shall be taken that the fixed stars be placed according to their true longitude and latitude, from the many and correct observations of Hevelius, Cassini, Mr. Flamstead, reg. astronomer; Dr. Hal

b Master of mechanics to king George I. William Sounders, a fishmonger, and Joseph Moxon, hydrographer to Charles II. were before Mr. Rowley great improvers of maps, spheres, and globes, which Senex carried afterwards to a higher degree of perfection. Mr. George Graham, without competition, the most eminent clock and watch-maker of his time, the first mechanic, and perfectly instructed in practical astronomy, comprised the whole planetary system within the compass of a small cabinet, from which, as a model, all the instruments, afterwards called orreries, have been constructed. Mr. Rowley, a mathematical instrument maker, got an apparatus of this kind from Mr. Graham, the original inventor, to be carried with some of Rowley's own instruments to the emperor of Germany. Rowley, copying from it, made a similar instrument for the earl of Orrery; and Steele, who knew nothing of Graham's machine, thinking in his Englishman to do justice and honour to the first encourager, as well as to the inventor of so curious an instrument, called it an orrery, giving to Mr. Rowley the praise of the invention, which belonged solely to Mr. Graham.See Guard. No. 1; and Englishman, No. 11.

ley, Savilian professor of geometry in Oxon; and from whatever else can be procured to render the globe more exact, instructive, and useful.

'That all the constellations be drawn in a curious, new, and particular manner; each star in so just, distinct, and conspicuous a proportion, that its true magnitude may be readily known by bare inspection, according to the different light and sizes of the stars. That the track or way of such comets as have been well observed, but not hitherto expressed in any globe, be carefully delineated in this.'

IN THE TERRESTRIAL GLOBE,

'That by reason the descriptions formerly made, both in the English and Dutch great globes, are erroneous, Asia, Africa, and America, be drawn in a manner wholly new; by which means it is to be noted that the undertakers will be obliged to alter the latitude of some places in ten degrees, the longitude of others in twenty degrees; besides which great and necessary alterations, there be many remarkable countries, cities, towns, rivers and lakes, omitted in other globes, inserted here according to the best discoveries made by our late navigators. Lastly, That the course of the trade winds, the monsoons, and other winds periodically shifting between the tropics, be visibly expressed.

'Now, in regard that this undertaking is of so universal use, as the advancement of the most necessary parts of the mathematics, as well as tending to the honour of the British nation, and that the charge of carrying it on is very expensive, it is desired that all gentlemen who are willing to promote so great a work will be pleased to subscribe on the following conditions.

'I. The undertakers engage to furnish each subscriber with a celestial and terrestrial globe, each of thirty inches diameter, in all respects curiously adorned, the stars gilded, the capital cities plainly distinguished, the frames, meridians, horizons, hourcircles and indexes, so exactly finished up and accurately divided, that a pair of these globes will really appear, in the judgment of any disinterested and intelligent person, worth fifteen pounds more than will be demanded for them by the undertakers.

'II. Whosoever will be pleased to subscribe, and pay twenty-five pounds in the manner following for a pair of these globes, either for their own use, or to present them to any college in the universities, or any public library or school, shall have his coat of arms, name, title, seat, or place of residence, &c., inserted in some convenient place of the globe.

III. That every subscriber do at first pay down the sum of ten pounds, and fifteen pounds more upon the delivery of each pair of globes perfectly fitted up. And that the said globe be delivered within twelve months after the number of thirty subscribers be completed; and that the subscribers be served with globes in the order in which they subscribed.

'IV. That a pair of these globes shall not hereafter be sold to any person but the subscribers under thirty pounds.

'V. That, if there be not thirty subscribers within four months after the first of December 1712, the money paid shall be returned on demand by Mr. John Warner, goldsmith, near Temple-bar, who shall receive and pay the same according to the abovementioned articles.

T.°

By Steele. Transcribed. See final note to No. 324, on letter T, sup

Just published, a poem entitled, "An Ode to the Creator of the World, occasioned by the Fragments of Orpheus.' Printed for J. Johnson, at Shakspeare's Head, over against Catherine-street in the Strand. See Nos. 537 and 554.

No. 553. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1712.

Nec luisse pudet, sed non incidere ludum.

HOR. 1, Ep. xiv. 36.

Once to be wild is no such foul disgrace,
But 'tis so still to run the frantic race.
CREECH.

THE project which I published on Monday last has brought me in several packets of letters. Among the rest, I have received one from a certain projector, wherein, after having represented that in all probability the solemnity of opening my mouth will draw together a great confluence of beholders, he proposes to me the hiring of Stationers'-hall for the more convenient exhibiting of that public ceremony. He undertakes to be at the charge of it himself, provided he may have the erecting of galleries on every side, and the letting of them out upon that occasion. I have a letter also from a bookseller, petitioning me in a very humble manner that he may have the printing of the speech which I shall make to the assembly upon the first opening of my mouth. I am informed from all parts that there are great canvassings in the several clubs about town, upon the choosing of a proper person to sit with me on those arduous affairs to which I have summoned them. Three clubs have already proceeded to election, whereof one has made a double return. If I find that my enemies shall

posed to have been used likewise occasionally as a signature by Mr. T. Tickell, &c.

take advantage of my silence to begin hostilities upon me, or if any other exigency of affairs may so require, since I see elections in so great a forwardness, we may possibly meet before the day appointed; or if matters go on to my satisfaction, I may perhaps put off the meeting to a further day; but of this public notice shall be given.

In the mean time I must confess that I am not a little gratified and obliged by that concern which appears in this great city upon my present design of laying down this paper. It is likewise with much satisfaction that I find some of the most outlying parts of the kingdom alarmed upon this occasion, having received letters to expostulate with me about it from several of my readers of the remotest boroughs of Great Britain. Among these I am very well pleased with a letter dated from Berwick-uponTweed, wherein my correspondent compares the office which I have for some time executed in these realms, to the weeding of a great garden; 'which,' says he, 'it is not sufficient to weed once for all, and afterwards to give over, but that the work must be continued daily, or the same spots of ground which are cleared for a while will in a little time be overrun as much as ever.' Another gentleman lays before me several enormities that are already sprouting, and which he believes will discover themselves in their full growth immediately after my disappear'There is no doubt,' says he, 'but the ladies' heads will shoot up as soon as they know they are no longer under the Spectator's eye; and I have already seen such monstrous broad-brimmed hats under the arms of foreigners, that I question not but they will overshadow the island within a month or two after the dropping of your paper.' But,

ance.

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