Part ii

. sect. 1, l. 4; sect. 3, l. 11. 'Obviously, nobody putting a hypothetical case in that way to a child would go out of his way to name with a past verb [see the second case] a date still in the future.'--Morley's Eng. Writers, v. 270. Similarly, the expression 'I wolde knowe,' in the former case, precludes a date in the _past_; and hence we are driven to conclude that the date refers to time present. Curiously enough, there is an exactly parallel case. Blundevill's Description of Blagrave's Astralabe, printed at London by William Stansby, is undated. Turning to his Proposition VI, p. 615, we find--'As for example, I would know the Meridian Altitude of the Sun y^e first of July, 1592.' The same date, 1592, is again mentioned, at pp. 619, 620, 621, 636, and 639, which renders it probable that the book was printed in that year.

'Neither his _collect_, ne his _expans yeres_, Ne his _rotes_, ne his othere geres'; F 1275-6.

[49] Not wishing to enforce this view upon every reader, and in order to save trouble in reference, I have numbered these sections 44 and 45. But if they belong, as I suppose, to Part iv ., they should have been named ' Part iv . Canon 1,' and ' Part iv . Canon 2' respectively.

[50] 'A smal instrument portatif aboute'; Prol. l. 52 (p. 177).

[51] 'The almikanteras in thyn Astrolabie been compouned by two and two.'

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