MILNER (Rev. Isaac). On the Precession of the Equinoxes Produced by the Sun's Attraction.1780

Printed by J. Nichols. 4to, [ii], 22pp., one folding engraved plate, small worm track to lower blank margin (not affecting text), recent half calf. No other copy located. The very rare first separately printed edition of a paper which was originally read before the Royal Society on 24th June 1779, and published in the 'Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London'. "Shortly after he took his bachelor's degree in 1774 he was ordained as deacon; in 1776 Queens' offered him a fellowship; in the following year he became a priest and college tutor; and in 1778 he was presented with the rectory of St Botolph. During these years his career as a natural philosopher began to take off. In 1776 Nevil Maskelyne hired him as a computer for the board of longitude, and two of his mathematical papers were presented to the Royal Society, of which he was elected fellow in 1780. In these papers Milner displayed three things—proficiency in mathematics, suspicion of French philosophy, and adherence to English Newtonian mechanics" (ODNB).