Annotation:Comet (1) (The)
COMET [1], THE. English, Jig (6/8 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Originally published in (Thompson's?) Twenty-Four Country Dances for the Year 1758, in December of which year Halley's Comet made one of its 76 year pilgrimages. It's appearance that year was a spectacular success for Edmond Halley, physicist and astronomer Edmond Halley (1656-1742) and for Newtonian physics in general, the system by which Halley calculated (in his 1705 Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets). Halley correctly surmised the comet (recorded as having been seen at at the Battle of Hastings, 1066) was part of the solar system and that its orbit and exact year of return could be calculated. He had seen in in 1682, and wrote "I would venture confidently to predict its return in 1758." Halley was also Sir Isaac Newton's friend and publisher.
