Oeuvres complètes. Tome III. Correspondance 1660-1661

N^o 933.
Chr. Wren à P. Neile.
11 octobre 1661¹⁾.
Appendice I au No. 932.

La lettre se trouve à Leiden, coll. Burmann.

A Copie of Mister Christopher Wren his letter to Sir Paule Neile, datted October the 1^st 1661.

Honored Sir.

You know of what prevalency your commands alone are with mee, although they had not been seconded by the votes of the best Society of Europe, to disobey which would not bee rudenesse alone but Gothisme & enemity to the progresse of learning. yet if it were not my resolution, that I ought to suffer any thing rather then bee deficient to so much duty, you should not have obtained of mee to expose my self so many wayes as I must of necessity doe in this little Triffle the Hypothesis of Saturne. For had it been so fortunate to have come into your hands while it could have told you any news, it might possibly have been as wel receued as the first messenger of a victory is wont to bee, though he brings but an imperfect story: but when Hugenius hath outrid mee, who stay'd to bring a fuller relation, to give you now a stale account, wil no doubt bee a pleasant thing to you, as unseasonable

1) Nous plaçons ici cette pièce à cause de sa relation avec l'Appendice suivant. Cependant, la lettre de Christiaan Huygens à Moray du 3 février 1662 fait voir que la pièce n'a pas accompagné la Lettre N^o. 932, mais qu'elle fut envoyée de Paris, probablement incluse dans une lettre de Lodewijk Huygens, que nous ne possédons pas.

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wel-meanings are wont to bee, but can not giue you any serious satisfaction. I must confesse I have often had the pusillanimity, rather tho neglect that right I might in Justice have vindicated, then by chalenging it too late incur the jealousie of being a plagiary; and since you it is that wil not suffer mee to continue in this peaceable humour, I shall not need to feare that you will intertaine any such suspition, especialy since this kind of Saturne was long before hatched by your influence at Whitt-Waltham²⁾, uppon the observation of December 1657, when first wee had an apprehension that the armes of ♄ kept their length, which produced this hypothesis, made first in two pasboards, not to say any thing of our attempts in wax in January 1655. The hypothesis made more durable in metal was erected at Grasham Colledge in May 1658. (if I mistake bee please to rectifie mee) to raise the 35 foote Telescope of your donation, at the same time I was put uppon writting on this subject, for which I supposed I had tollerable observations and materials at hand. but first I was enjoyned to give that short and generall account of it, which about that time I drew up in this sheet³⁾. But when in a short while after, the Hypothesis of Hugenius was sent over in writing, I confesse I was so fond of the neatenesse of it & the naturall simplicity of the contriuance, agreing so well with the Physicall causes of the heavenly bodies, that I loved the invention beyond my owne, & though they bee so much an aequipollent with that of Hugenius, that I suppose future observations wil never bee able to determine which is the trewest, yet I would not proceed with my designe, nor expose soe much as this sheet any farther then to the eye of my bosome freind, to whome even my errors lay alwayes open. Neither had I now been persuaded to it, but that I could not endure a Regresse in Reall Learning^a), having allwayes had a zeale for the progresse of it; & to see ingenious men neglecting what was well determined before, & doe worse on the same subject because they would doe otherwise, was allwayes wont to make mee passionate. and therefor I could not with Charity suffer a person (whose greate wit onusefuly applied, would be a losse to the world) to trouble hemselfe with this lesse considerable Hypothesis, which if hee hadt knowne not to bee new, hee had possibly dispised; & yet it is very well advised of him that wee should not soe build uppon Hugenius Hypothesis, as to neglect the observations about the full Phasis, which till they are obtained little more can bee determined in this thing then wath Hugenius hath done, and therefore though I might haue taken occasion together with this old paper to haue sent some new Hypotheses, yet considering they would as yet bee but meer conjectures, I have let alone those thoughts. and if it bee suspected that any thing sayd in this superficiall draught of Saturne bee of this sort, that is, contriued since the seeing of Hugenius, I haue a double appeale to

2) L'observatoire à White-Waltham (Berkshire) de William Neile.

3) La pièce N^o. 934.

a) Haec contra Freniclium qui meam hypothesin interpolaverat. [Chr. Huygens.]

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make; one to my honored freind Mr. Roocke⁴⁾ who at first saw the onely copy, & an other to the style which speakes I had not yet used the industry to refine above what might have proceeded from my childisch pen, hauing not then been soe sufficiently convinced of the necessity of words as wel as thinghs; neither would I change it now, that I might bee conscious to my self of sincerity; but where to much obscurity in the expression onely forced mee in two or three places. For these reasons I earnestly beg this fauour of you (as a freind I desire it) that you would keepe it in your hands & restore it againe, which as the case stands will giue mee almost as much satisfaction as if I had found the confidence to haue excused my self when it was enjoyned mee at the Society: which I might wel haue done, considering that diuerse there, had been at the trouble to heare the Astronomy Reader⁵⁾ at Gresham give fuller discourses on the same subjects which hee thought then was publication enough; & might haue saued the impertinencie of these Apologie, for what hee thinckes deserues not now soe much of his care, otherwise then as it is a command from them to

Your most obedient humble seruant Christopher Wren.

4) Lawrence Rooke naquit à Deptford en 1623, et mourut le 27 juin 1662 à Londres. Ayant pris ses degrés à Cambridge, il devint adjoint de Ward et de Boyle à Oxford, puis, en 1652, professeur d'astronomie au collège de Gresham, où, en 1657, il fut nommé aussi professeur de mathématiques. C'est chez lui que commencèrent les assemblées dont ensuite résulta la Société Royale. Il mourut d'une fluxion de poitrine, la nuit même où il devait terminer une série d'observations de plusieurs années sur les satellites de Jupiter.

5) C'est le même Rooke de la note 4.