After this manner... the Astronomical Reader may examine these Numbers, which I have calculated, with all imaginable Care, from the Observations I have met with. And I have not thought fit to make them publick before they have been duly examin'd, and made as accurate as 'twas possible, by the Study of many Years. I have publish'd this Specimen of Cometical Astronomy, as a Prodromus of a designed future Work, left, happening to die, these Papers might be lost, which every Man is not capable to retrieve, by reason of the great Difficulty of the Calculation.
— EDMOND HALLEY