"MAISTER: ... howbeit Copernicus a man of great learning, of much experience, and of wonderfull diligence in observation, hath renewed the opinion of Aristarchus Samius, affirming that the earth, not onely moveth circularly about his owne centre, but also may be, yea and is, continually out of the precise centre of the world eight and thirty hundred thousand miles: but because the understanding of that controversie depends of profounder knowledge than in this Introduction may be uttered conveniently, I wil let it passe til some other time. "SCHOLLER: Nay sit, in good faith, I desire not to heare such vaine fantasies, so farre against the common reason, and repugnant to the content of all the learned multitude of Writers, and therefore let it passe for ever and a day longer. "MAISTER: You are too yong to be a good judge in so great a matter: it passeth farre your learning, and their's also, that are much better learned than you, to improuve his supposition by good arguments, and therefore you were best condemne nothing that you do not well understand: but an other time, as I saide, I will so declare his supposition, that you shall not onely wonder to heare it, but also peradventure be as earnest then to credite it, as you are now to condemne it: in the meane season let us proceed forward in our former order...." [Footnote 190: _Dict. of Nat. Biog._: "Recorde."] [Footnote 191: Quoted (p. 135), from the edition of 1596 in the library of Mr. George A. Plimpton. See also Recorde's _Whetstone of Witte_ (1557) as cited by Berry, 127.] This little book, reprinted in 1556 and in 1596, and one of the most popular of the mathematical writings in England during that century, must have interested the English in the new doctrine even before Bruno's emphatic presentation of it to them in the eighties. Yet the English did not welcome it cordially. One of the most popular books of this period was Sylvester's translation (1591) of DuBartas's _The Divine Weeks_ which appeared in France in 1578, a book loved especially by Milton.[192] DuBartas writes:[193] "Those clerks that think--think how absurd a jest! That neither heavens nor stars do turn at all, Nor dance around this great, round earthly ball, But the earth itself, this massy globe of our's, Turns round about once every twice twelve hours! And we resemble land-bred novices New brought aboard to venture on the seas; Who at first launching from the shore suppose The ship stands still and that the firm earth goes." [Footnote 192: DuBartas: _The Divine Weeks_ (Sylvester's trans. edited by Haight): Preface, pp. xx-xxiii and note.] [Footnote 193: _Op. cit._: 72.]