his sun, and he had a singular gift at the funeral elegy, those on Addison himself and on Cadogan being of remarkable excellence in their kind.-SAINTSBURY, GEORGE, 1896, Social England, ed. Traill, vol. v, p. 73.

Tickell was certainly as good a versifier as Addison; but his chief claim to notice, as he himself felt, is that he was Addison's friend. AITKEN, GEORGE A., 1898, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LVI, p. 381.

PERSONAL

Mr. Edmund Hally, astronomer, born October 29, 1656, London-this nativity I had from Mr. Hally himself.

At 9 yeares old, his father's apprentice taught him to write, and arithmetique. He went to Paule's schoole to Dr. Gale: while he was there he was very perfect in the Caelestiall Globes insomuch that I heard Mr. Moxon (the globe-maker) say that if a star were misplaced in the globe, he would presently find it. At

he studyed Geometry, and at 16 could make a dyall, and then, he said, thought himselfe a brave fellow. At 16 went to Queen's Colledge in Oxon, well versed in Latin, Greeke, and Hebrew: where at the age of nineteen, he solved this useful probleme in astronomie, never donne before, viz. "from 3 distances given from the sun, and angles between, to find the orbe" (mentioned in the Philosophicall Transactions, Aug. or Sept. 1676, No. 115), for which his name will be ever famous.-AUBREY, JOHN, 1669-96, Brief Lives, ed. Clark, vol. 1, p. 282.

I have no esteem of a man who has lost his reputation, both for skill, candour, and ingenuity, by silly tricks, ingratitude, and foolish prate; and that I value not all, or any of the shame of him and his infidel companions; being very well satisfied, that if Christ and his Apostles were to walk again upon the earth, they should not escape free from the calumnies of

their venomous tongues. But I hate his ill manners, not the man. Were he either honest or but civil, there is none in whose company I could rather desire to be.FLAMSTEED, JOHN, 1692, Letter to Newton, Feb. 24.

Being last night with Dr. Halley, he said that he could wish to live seven years longer (if he could be easy) that he might finish a work he had begun, which he believed he could do in that time. Being somewhat lame, he said he wished to have his health perfect to the last without infirmities, and that he would willingly die if such infirmities came on. For why, said he, should a man live to be uneasy both to himself and those about him? What the work above mentioned is neither myself nor the other person with him. asked.-HEARNE, THOMAS, 1721, Reliquiæ Hearniana, ed. Bliss, May 14, vol. II, p. 129.

In person Halley was "of a middle statof body, and a fair complexion," and it is ure, inclining to tallness, of a thin habit added that "he always spoke as well as acted with an uncommon degree of sprightliness and vivacity." His disposition was ardent, generous, and candid; he was disinterested and upright, genial to his friends, an affectionate husband and father, and was wholly free from rancour of jealousy. He passed a life of almost unprecedented literary and scientific activity without becoming involved in a single

controversy, and was rendered socially attractive by the unfailing gaity which embellished the more recondite qualities of a mind of extraordinary penetration, compass, and power. One of his admirers was Peter the Great, who in 1697 not only consulted him as to his shipbuilding and other projects, but admitted him familiarly to his table. Portraits of Halley were painted by Murray, Phillips, and Kneller, and engravings from each were published. CLERKE, MISS A. M., 1890, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXIV, P. 107.

Halley's disposition seems to have been generous and candid, and wholly free from anything like jealousy or rancour. In person he was rather above the middle height, and slight in build; his complexion was fair, and he is said to have always spoken, as well as acted, with uncommon sprightliness. In the èloge pronounced upon him at the Paris Académie dés Sciences, of which Halley had been made a member in 1719, it was said, "he possessed all the qualifications which were necessary to please princes who were desirous of instruction, with a great extent of knowledge and a constant presence of mind; his answers were ready, and at the same time pertinent, judicious, polite and sincere." Thus we find that Peter the Great was one of his most ardent admirers. He consulted the astronomer on matters connected with shipbuilding, and invited him to his own table. But Halley possessed nobler qualifications than the capacity of pleasing princes. He was able to excite and to retain the love and admiration of his equals. This was due to the warmth of his attachments, the unselfishness of his devotion to his friends, and to a vein. of gaiety and good-humour which pervaded all his conversation.-BALL, SIR ROBERT S., 1895, Great Astronomers, p. 184.

GENERAL

While we thought that the eulogium of an astronomer, a physicist, a scholar, and a philosopher comprehended our whole subject, we have been insensibly surprised into the history of an excellent mariner, an illustrious traveller, an able engineer, and almost a statesman. -MAIRAN, M., 1742, Eloge upon Halley.

The original records of Halley's observations are deposited at Greenwich in

four small quarto volumes. Upon the recommendation of Mr. Baily, a manuscript copy of them was taken by the order of the Lords of the Admiralty, and presented to the Astronomical Society, in the year 1832. Mr. Baily has concluded, from a careful inspection of these observations, that they do not possess sufficient value to render it desirable that they should be printed. Maskelyne had already intimated to Delambre, that they were hardly preferable to those of Flamsteed. Halley, indeed, was endowed with a mind of vast compass as well as extraordinary sagacity and power; but he seems to have undervalued those habits of minute attention which are indispensable to the attainment of a high degree of excellence in the practice of astronomical observation. — GRANT, ROBERT, 1852, History of Physical Astronomy, p. 479.

Of

Lalande styled Halley "the greatest of English astronomers," and he ranked by common consent next to Newton among the scientific Englishmen of his time. eighty-four papers inserted by him in the "Philosophical Transactions" a large proportion expounded in a brilliant and attractive style theories or inventions opening up novel lines of inquiry and showing a genius no less fertile than comprehensive. CLERKE, MISS A. M., 1890, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXIV, p. 109.

To Halley the World owes a great debt of gratitude-first, for discovering the "Principia;" second, for seeing it through the press; and third, for defraying the cost of its publication out of his own scanty purse. For though he ultimately suffered no pecuniary loss, rather the contrary, yet there was considerable risk in bringing out a book which not a dozen men living could at the time comprehend. It is no small part of the merit of Halley that he recognized the transcendent value of the yet unfinished work, that he brought it to light, and assisted in its becoming understood to the best of his ability. Though Halley afterwards became Astronomer-Royal, lived to the ripe old age of eighty-six, and made many striking observations, yet he would be the first to admit that nothing he ever did was at all comparable in importance with his discovery of the "Principia;" and he always used to regard his part in it with peculiar pride