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proceeded to make dials by the direction of such books as he could procure; and having exchanged a piece of astrology, found among his father's books, for Mr. Street's Caroline Tables,' he set himself to compute the places of the planets. He spent some part of his time, indeed, in astrological studies; but it was only with the view of rendering them subservient to useful astronomy.

Having calculated by these tables an eclipse of the sun, he communicated it to a relation, who showed it to Emanuel Halton, Esq., of Wingfield Manor, in Derbyshire. This gentleman, who was a good mathematician (as appears from some of his pieces, published in the Appendix to Foster's Mathematical Miscellanies) came to see Mr. Flamsteed soon afterward; and finding him little acquainted with the astronomical performances of others, sent him Riccioli's New Almagest' in Latin, and Kepler's Rudolphine Tables,' with some other works of the same description, to which he was previously a stranger. From this time, he prosecuted his studies with equal vigour and success.

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In 1669, he calculated some remarkable eclipses of the fixed stars by the moon for the following year, and directed them to Lord Brounker, then President of the Royal Society. This piece, being read before the Society, procured him their letters of thanks, and accounts of all the mathematical books which were published either at home or abroad.

In June, 1670, his father, who had hitherto discountenanced his studies, observing his correspondence with men of genius, advised him to take a journey to London, that he might be introduced to their personal acquaintance. He, accordingly, visited

Mr. Oldenburgh and Mr. Collins, by whom he was introduced to Sir Jonas Moore, the first English author of a System of Mathematics. Sir Jonas received the rustic philosopher under his protection, presented him with Townley's micrometer, and undertook to procure him glasses for a telescope at a moderate rate. Flamsteed soon afterward went to Cambridge, where he visited Barrow, Roe, and Newton; and at the same time he entered himself a student of Jesus College, Sir Jonas Moore contributing to his expenses for that purpose.

In the spring of 1672, he extracted and translated into Latin some observations from Mr. Gascoigne's and Mr. Crabtree's Letters on Mathematical Subjects,' which had not previously been made public. The transcript of Gascoigne's papers he finished in May; and he spent the ensuing six months in making observations, and in preparing advertisements of the approaches of the moon and planets to the fixed stars for the following year. These, with some of his observations on the planets, were published by Mr. Oldenburgh in the Philosophical Transactions.

In 1673, he drew up a small English tract concerning the true and apparent diameters of all the planets, when at their nearest or remotest distances from the earth; and in 1674, an Ephemeris, to show the falsity of astrology, and the ignorance of those who pretended to it: adding an accurate table of the moon's rising and setting, with her eclipses and approaches (as well as those of the other planets) to the fixed stars. This he communicated to Sir Jonas Moore, with a table of the moon's true southing that year.

In 1674, passing through London in his way to

Cambridge, he learned from that gentleman, that a true account of the tides would be highly acceptable to Charles II.; upon which, he composed a small Ephemeris for his Majesty's use. Sir Jonas having frequently heard him discourse of the barometer, and the certainty of it's indications of the weather, requested him to supply him with a pair, which he subsequently exhibited to the King and the Duke of York, with Flamsteed's directions for interpreting their rise or fall.

Upon taking the degree of M. A. at Cambridge, Mr. Flamsteed resolved to enter into holy orders, and to settle upon a small living near Derby, which was in the gift of one of his father's friends. His patron had, indeed, other views for him; but, finding him fixed in his resolution, he did not attempt to dissuade him from it. Even the warrant of the astronomership royal with a salary of 1001. per ann., which he procured for him in 1675, did not induce him to relinquish his design. The Easter following he was ordained at Ely House by Bishop Gunning, who ever afterward conversed freely with him upon the new philosophy and opinions, though his Lordship continued strenuously to maintain the old.

In the same year, was laid the foundation of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, which from it's first occupier is still called Flamsteed House. During the building of this edifice he lodged at Greenwich, where he observed the appulses of the moon and planets to the fixed stars. In 1681, his Doctrine of the Sphere' was published in Sir Jonas Moore's System of the Mathematics."

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About the year 1684, he was presented to the living of Barstow near Blechingly, in Surrey. Of

the manner in which he obtained this preferment, the following account is given by Mr. Roger North: "Sir Jonas Moore once invited the Lord Keeper North to dine with him at the Tower; and, after dinner, presented Mr. Flamsteed. His Lordship received him with much familiarity, and encouraged him to come and see him often, that he might have the pleasure of his conversation. The star-gazer was not wanting to himself in that: and his Lordship was extremely delighted with his accounts and observations about the planets, especially those attendant on Jupiter; showing how the eclipses of them, being regular and calculable, might rectify the longitude of places upon the globe, and demonstrating that light did not pass instantaneously but in time, with other remarkables in the heavens. These discourses always regaled his Lordship; and a good benefice falling void, not far from the Observatory, in the gift of the Great Seal, his Lordship gave it to Mr. Flamsteed; which set him at ease in his fortunes, and encouraged his future labours from which great things were expected; as applying the Jovial Observations to marine uses, for finding longitudes at sea, and to correct the globes, celestial and terrestrial, which were very faulty. And in order to the first, he had composed tables of the eclipses of the satellites, which showed when they were to happen, one after another; and of these, finely painted upon neat board, he made a present to his Lordship. And he had advanced his other design of rectifying maps, by having provided large blank globes, on which he might inscribe his places corrected. But plenty and pains seldom dwell together; for as one enters, the other gives way: and, in this instance, a good living, pensions, &c. spoiled a good

cosmographer and astronomer: so very little is left. of Mr. Flamsteed's sedulous and judicious applications that way."

Here, in justice to Mr. Flamsteed, it should be observed, that there appears no just ground for this caustic reflexion. His astronomical iniquiries might not invariably produce all the consequences, which were expected; but nothing of this kind seems to have arisen from want of application in the observer. The Philosophical Transactions, indeed, afford ample evidence of his activity and diligence, as well as of his penetration and exactness, in astronomical studies, after he had obtained the above preferments, the only ones ever conferred upon him.

In December 1719, he was seized with a strangury, which carried him off on the last day of that month. He left a widow behind him, but no children. He had spent a great part of his life in the pursuit of knowledge, and his uncommon merit as an astronomer was acknowledged by the ablest of his contemporaries: particularly at home by Dr. Wallis, Dr. Halley, and Sir Isaac Newton; and, among foreigners, by the celebrated Cassini.

His Historia Cœlestis Britannica' was published in 1725, in three volumes folio by his widow, and dedicated to the King. Great part of this work had been printed off before his death, and the rest, with the exception of the Prolegomena prefixed to the third volume, was left ready for the press.

Mr. Flamsteed, as Dr. Keill observes, "with indefatigable pains for more than forty years watched the motions of the stars, and has given us innumerable observations of the sun, moon, and planets, which he made with very large instruments exactly