[Footnote 80: This last comet was visible in the month of
December, 1680. Bayle, who began his Pensees sur la Comete
in January, 1681, (Oeuvres, tom. iii.,) was forced to argue
that a supernatural comet would have confirmed the ancients
in their idolatry. Bernoulli (see his Eloge, in Fontenelle,
tom. v. p. 99) was forced to allow that the tail though not
the head, was a sign of the wrath of God.]