Note I — LETTER the THIRD.

Nicolaus Copernicus, stiled by Bulialdus, Vir absolutæ subtilitatis, was a Native of Thorn in Polish Prussia, and Canon of the Church of Frawenburgh; he was Scholar to Dominicus Maria of Ferrara, to whom he was Assistant in his astronomical Observations at Bologne, and Professor of the Mathematicks at Rome, in his noble Work, De Revolutionibus Orbium Cælestium; he fortunately revived, happily united, and formed into an Hypothesis of his own, the several Opinions of Philolaus, Heraclides Ponticus, and Ecphantus Pythagoreus, viz. after the Opinion of Philolaus he made the Earth to move about the Sun, as the Center of its annual Motion; and according to Heraclides and Ecphantus, he likewise gave it a diurnal Rotation round its own Axis: Which System has withstood all Opposition; and as Ricciolus, (though a Dissenter from it) observes, Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso sumit opes, animumque ferro.