which the board of Ordnance had issued £500. before dinner, Dr Halley entertain'd us with a transit over the meridian, of the largest of all the fixt stars, Sirius. I observ'd, it ran along the horizontal thread of the telescope with an undulatory or jogging motion which I attributed to the nisus betw. the axis of the earth, & obliquity of the ecliptic; in which the earths motion is perform'd: which must in some degree oppose one another, bec. the axis of the earth is not parallel to the plain, in which it moves. & this seemed to me, to be the cause, that the heavenly bodys view'd in telescopes, do not proceed in a swimming, even motion; but by jirks.
the 6 june following, I left the Town, being at that time, one of the Censors of the College of Physicians; one of the Council of the Royal Society; & secretary to the antiquarian society . but I found, I was moved by a secret impulse of Providence, which saw further than my views extended.
some of the fruits of my recess was the opportunity I had of drawing up these Memoirs. another was, that I fortunately found out the method of subduing that hitherto unconquerable malady, the gout; so as to
render my future life comfortable: which was one reason that induc'd me to enter into holy Orders: & therein I was much incourag'd by my great friend, Archbishop Wake, who ordaind me.
