Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/377

 ROBERT WYER. 363 on which to lay this spurious offspring ? Because, following the Calendar proper was a short sepa- rate astrological treatise, a medieval composition deriving from Ptolemy. The first English trans- lation (Paris, 1503) separates it clearly from the main book : ' Folio wys oon ly tel traytte for to vnderstonde vnder qwahat planet the chyld is boorn. Addycyon ' (Sommer, p. 138). The other early editions call it 'a prologe of the auclxmr vpon the xii sygnes,' and append the signature ' Ptholomaeus '(Sommer, p. 159). Wyer's book has taken the hint, and amalgamating this portion with the rest has given the whole coherence and a look of unity by attributing everything to Ptolemy, and by omitting everything out of the tone of superstition and pseudo-science which adapted the work to his public. One interesting section of the book' becomes certainly more appropriate in the mouth of ' these Astronomyers ' than of the ' Shephardes. 5 ' A marueylous consyderacion of the great vnder- standing of shepeherds' (Sommer, p. 171) becomes ' The great and meruaylous consyderacyon & great vnderstandynge of the astronomyers and astrolo- giers ' (fol. k, refto). It is a tolerably long chapter on gaining and losing time in going round the world. ' If lohan and Peter set out to go round the world [in opposite directions], and Robert abode them in the place from whence they departed. . . [then if they met again at Robert's abiding-place together,] put case it were on a Sondaye, lohan wolde say it is Saturday, Peter wolde say it is Monday / and Robert wolde say it is Sonday.'