Anglicans From The United Kingdom

"I offer here the history of neither a saint, a hero, nor a tyrant. I believe there are few events in my life, which have not happened to many: it is true the incidents of it are numerous; and, did I consider myself an European, I might say my sufferings were great: but when I compare my lot with that of most of my countrymen, I regard myself as a particular favourite of Heaven, and acknowledge the mercies of Providence in every occurrence of my life."

"Accordingly he signed the manumission that day; so that, before night, I who had been a slave in the morning, trembling at the will of another, was became [sic] my own master, and completely free. I thought this was the happiest day I had ever experienced..."

"Hitherto I had thought only slavery dreadful; but the state of a free negro appeared to me now equally so at least, and in some respects even worse, for they live in constant alarm for their liberty; and even this is but nominal, for they are universally insulted and plundered without the possibility of redress; for such is the equity of the West Indian laws, that no free negro's evidence will be admitted in their courts of justice. In this situation is it surprising that slaves, when mildly treated, should prefer even the misery of slavery to such a mockery of freedom?"

"These overseers are indeed for the most part persons of the worst character of any denomination of men in the West Indies. Unfortunately, many humane gentlemen, by not residing on their estates, are obliged to leave the management of them in the hands of these human butchers, who cut and mangle the slaves in a shocking manner on the most trifling occasions, and altogether treat them in every respect like brutes."

"This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died, thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable; and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell, and were almost suffocated. The shrieks of the women, and the groans of the dying, rendered the whole a scene of horror almost inconceivable."

"Such a tendency has the slave-trade to debauch men's minds, and harden them to every feeling of humanity! For I will not suppose that the dealers in slaves are born worse than other men—No; it is the fatality of this mistaken avarice, that it corrupts the milk of human kindness and turns it into gall. And, had the pursuits of those men been different, they might have been as generous, as tender-hearted and just, as they are unfeeling, rapacious and cruel. Surely this traffic cannot be good, which spreads like a pestilence, and taints what it touches! which violates that first natural right of mankind, equality and independency, and gives one man a dominion over his fellows which God could never intend! For it raises the owner to a state as far above man as it depresses the slave below it; and, with all the presumption of human pride, sets a distinction between them, immeasurable in extent, and endless in duration! Yet how mistaken is the avarice even of the planters? Are slaves more useful by being thus humbled to the condition of brutes, than they would be if suffered to enjoy the privileges of men? The freedom which diffuses health and prosperity throughout Britain answers you—No. When you make men slaves you deprive them of half their virtue, you set them in your own conduct an example of fraud, rapine, and cruelty, and compel them to live with you in a state of war; and yet you complain that they are not honest or faithful! You stupify them with stripes, and think it necessary to keep them in a state of ignorance; and yet you assert that they are incapable of learning; that their minds are such a barren soil or moor, that culture would be lost on them; and that they come from a climate, where nature, though prodigal of her bounties in a degree unknown to yourselves, has left man alone scant and unfinished, and incapable of enjoying the treasures she has poured out for him!—An assertion at once impious and absurd. Why do you use those instruments of torture? Are they fit to be applied by one rational being to another? And are ye not struck with shame and mortification, to see the partakers of your nature reduced so low? But, above all, are there no dangers attending this mode of treatment? Are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection? [...] But by changing your conduct, and treating your slaves as men, every cause of fear would be banished. They would be faithful, honest, intelligent and vigorous; and peace, prosperity, and happiness, would attend you."

"But now suppose the soul, when separate, Could live, and think, in a divided state: Yet what is that to us, who are the whole, A frame composed of body, joined with soul? Nay, grant the scattered ashes of our urn, Be joined again, and life and sense return: Yet how can that concern us, when 'tis done, Since all the memory of past life is gone? Now we ne'er joy, nor grieve, to think that we Were heretofore, nor what those things will be, Which framed from us, the following age shall see. When we revolve, how numerous years have run, How oft the east beheld the rising sun E'er we began, and how the atoms move, How the unthinking seed forever strove; 'Tis probable, and reason's laws allow, These seeds of ours were once combined as now; Yet now who minds, who knows his former state? The interim of death, the hand of fate, Or stopped the seeds, or made them all commence Such motions, as destroyed the former sense."

"If it is necessary that each sentient being must have the possibility of achieving an overwhelming good, then it is clear that there must be some form of life after earthly death. Despite the many pointers to the existence of God, theism would be falsified if physical death was the end, for then there could be no justification for the existence of this world. However, if one supposes that every sentient being has an endless existence, which offers the prospect of supreme happiness, it is surely true that the sorrows and troubles of this life will seem very small by comparison. Immortality, for animals as well as humans, is a necessary condition of any acceptable ; that necessity, together with all the other arguments for God, is one of the main reasons for believing in immortality."

"Very grand, but so withdrawn. But he was always polite. A gentleman."

"Boris Karloff's face has always fascinated me, and I made drawings of his head, added sharp, bony ridges where I imagined the skull might be joined. His physique was weaker than I could wish, but that queer, penetrating personality of his I felt was more important than his shape, which could easily be altered."

"I remember Boris Karloff saying to me, find something that nobody else can do or will do, even if it is a type of role, and you'll be the only one, and there's nothing wrong with that."

"My father was such a private and modest man. He did not really bring his career home or talk about other actors, and he lived a very conservative, circumspect life. He did not live the life of a movie star. He was a typical English gentleman. I really was not aware. I mean I knew what he did, but I was not aware of the magnitude of his stardom."

"I adored making ' with dear Boris Karloff. He refused to do his own stunts, the mark of a true Hollywood star."

"He was a lovely man. We used to have great fun reciting poetry to each other."

"You could heave a brick out of the window and hit ten actors who could play my parts. I just happened to be on the right corner at the right time."

"It was a family name on my mother's side, and I thought my own name Pratt, if I ever got known in the theatre might be unfortunate."

"The Monster was the best friend I ever had. I'd been in Hollywood for ten years and no one had heard of me except my creditors. Then in 1931 I played the monster and a career was born. I'm truly indebted to the old Ghoul."

"Pattison lived through a formative period in the history of the modern university in England, and in his person he embodied many of the transformations that occurred in the half century he spent at Oxford. To re-trace his life and thought is therefore to explore through the eyes of a key figure the elements of that transition to the modern university: the secularization of intellectual life, the emergence of the professional academic, and the challenge posed by the emergent German idea of the university to the traditions of English university life. When Pattison arrived at Oxford as an undergraduate in 1832, the University's chief purpose was to provide a gentlemanly education for intending clergy."

"Another book read this term seized upon my interest in an exceptional way, this was Gibbon's Autobiography. I had long before got hold of a few extracts from this, which had found their way into Lord Sheffield's Memoir of the author, prefixed to an edition of the Decline and Fall which we had at home. Those extracts had fixed themselves in my memory. I now procured the whole book and devoured it, reading it again and again till I could repeat whole paragraphs. Gibbon, in fact, supplied the place of a college tutor; he not only found me advice, but secretly inspired me with the enthusiasm to follow it."

"In the Diary which begins 1845 there is a much larger infusion of secular matter. I find myself deep in the literary history of the eighteenth century, reading Gray's Correspondence, Prior's Life of Goldsmith, Hume's Life and Correspondence ..."

"A man who does not know what has been thought by those who have gone before him is sure to set an undue value upon his own ideas—ideas which have perhaps been tried and found wanting. As accumulated learning stifles the mental powers, so original thinking has been known to bring about a puffy, unsubstantial mental condition."

"About 1500 it seemed as if Europe was about to cast off at one effort the slough of feudal barbarism, and to step at once into the fair inheritance of the wisdom and culture of the ancient world. The Church led the van, and smiled on free inquiry and the new learning. About the third decennium of the century the resistance of the obscurantists was organised, the Catholic reaction set in, and nascent humanism was submerged beneath the rising tide of theological passion and the fatal and fruitless controversies of Lutheran, Calvinist, and Catholic, to the rival cries of the Bible and the Church. The " sacrificio d'intelletto " of Loyola took the place of the free and rationalising spirit with which Erasmus had looked out upon the world of men."

"But there was in my father's mind another sentiment, less creditable to him, than the wish to give me the best education to be had. I mean those social aspirations which he continued to nourish, though by his removal to the remote situation of Hauxwell, and consequent detachment from the Castle, he was no longer able to gratify them. He had the instinct of good society, and liked to live with gentlemen, and to know what was going on in the upper world. His acquaintance with the peerage was accurate; he must have read Debrett at that time more than the Bible. Hence, in estimating colleges he was led to take the footman's view, and to prefer one which was frequented by the sons of gentlemen."

"My father's views for me, which were to guide his choice of college, were twofold. He really wanted me to learn; to get a good education, not so much with the idea of my making my way in the world, as from the value which he had learned to set upon intellect. ... He was fond of repeating the sentence in the Eton Latin grammar—" Concessi Cantabrigiam ad capiendum ingenii cultum. . . ." This was the proverb which presided over my whole college life. Though often dimmed, it was never lost sight of, and however much I may have had to hate the grammar on other accounts, I think no other sentence of any book has had so large a share in moulding my mind and character as that one. It was then essential to my father's plans for me that the college to be selected for me should be one where the instruction given was reputed to be good."

"I wanted not merely to get up my classics, but to penetrate to the secrets and mysteries which I vaguely understood to be somehow wrapt up in books, though they had not, as yet, been revealed to me. I was disconcerted to find that none of my new acquaintance had any share of this yearning curiosity."

"... I began at the beginning, and read Hind's Logic, Whately's Logic, Reid's Enquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. But the book which was of most use to me on these subjects was Stewart's Elements. I found on odd volume of this in my father's study at Hauxwell. It attracted me; I read and re-read it with increasing satisfaction. To Dugald Stewart, an author now obsolete, I owe the first infusion of a taste for philosophical inquiry. ...."

"James Bradley had not published his Greenwich observations. In law they proved to be his personal property, and after his death they were claimed successfully by his only child, a daughter, and her husband, the Reverend Samuel Peach. They in turn gave the records to Oxford University where Bradley had studied and had held the Savilian professorship of Astronomy. The first of Bradley's records to be published was the catalogue of stars that Mason prepared for the Nautical Almanac of 1773. The Clarendon Press of Oxford University undertook the publication of all the records. The first volume appeared in 1798 under the editorship of Professor . It includes Mason's star catalogue. Mason and Hornsby carried on an extensive correspondence about the Greenwich records that undoubtedly aided in preparing them for the press. The second volume, edited by Dr. Abram Robertson, appeared in 1805. Finally in 1832 there was published The Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence of Reverend James Bradley under the editorship of Professor S. P. Rigaud."

"And at Greenwich Mason first learned to know Mayer's Tables of the Moon. ...Bradley first reported on Mayer's Tables on February 10, 1756, and finally on April 14, 1760. With the assistance of Charles Mason, Bradley had compared positions of the Moon as predicted in the Tables with positions as observed at Greenwich. Eleven hundred comparisons led to the comment: So far as it will depend upon the lunar tables the true longitude of a ship at sea may in all cases be found within about half a degree and generally much nearer. It remained to be examined within what limits the errors arising from observations actually taken at sea could be contained. This test was carried out for Bradley by Captain Campbell, of H.M.S. Royal George, on cruises near Ushant in 1758 and 1759. A sextant was made especially for the trials by John Bird, instrument maker for Greenwich Observatory. Bradley's final comment reads: However great the difficulties of finding the longitude by this method seem to be, they are not insuperable, or such as ought to deter those whom it most nearly concerns from attempting to remove them. James Bradley was now nearing the end of his days. His hand was faltering. Nevil Maskelyne and Charles Mason received the torch he had carried. They made the development of the method of lunar distances for finding the longitude at sea a major concern of the rest of their lives."

"laid the foundation of his career at Greenwich where he worked from 1756 to 1760 as assistant observer to the Reverend James Bradley, Astronomer Royal. Bradley was then near the end of his career... As a young man he had discovered the aberration of light and the nutation of the axis of the Earth and had founded a new era of precise observations. He had enlarged the Greenwich Observatory and equipped it with new instruments. Mason acquired some of the spirit and the ideals of his preceptor and learned from him the use of instruments of precision and the art of observing. At Greenwich Mason made the acquaintance of the Reverend , a young astronomer who was assisting the Astronomer Royal in a study of atmospheric refraction. This association of Mason and Maskelyne continued as long as Mason lived."

"James Bradley's successor as Astronomer Royal was , who lived only two years after his appointment. Maskelyne succeeded him early in 1765 and thus became the fifth Astronomer Royal at Greenwich."

"The vast mass of observations made by Bradley... two volumes... continued inapplicable to any useful purpose, in consequence of their not being reduced, until... Bessel undertook to execute this task... The results of his labours were published in 1818, at Königsberg, in one folio volume, entitled Fundamenta Astronomiæ pro anno 1755, deducta ea Observationibus viri incomparabilis James Bradley, in specula Astronomica Grenovicensi per annos 1750 1762 institutis. In this work Bessel has determined, by a series of elaborate investigations, the quantity and laws of refraction, the maximum value of aberration, and other fundamental points of astronomy, as deducible from Bradley s observations."

"The observations made with the zenith sector at Kew and Wanstead, by the intercomparison of which Bradley was conducted to the discovery of aberration, were at one time supposed to be lost; but having been found among the papers of the late Dr. Hornsby, they were published by Professor Rigaud, in 1832, at the expense of the University, of which the immortal author of the discovery forms one of the brightest ornaments."

"The last quarter of 's life was spent on projects that grew out of his earlier work at Greenwich Observatory as assistant observer to Astronomer Royal Bradley. From studies of Bradley's records Mason prepared tables for and he was able to improve Mayer's Tables of the Moon by comparing them with the Greenwich records. was established by in 1767, immediately after his appointment as Astronomer Royal, and it has appeared annually ever since. In the first issue the latitude and longitude of are given as found by Mason and Dixon in 1761. The comment follows that "it is probable that the Situation of few Places is better determined." To the Almanac for 1773 Mason contributed a catalogue of stars. The preface, written by Maskelyne, states: To this are annexed... a Catalogue of 387 fixed Stars.... adapted to the beginning of the year 1760... calculated from the late Dr. Bradley's Observations by Mr. Charles Mason, formerly his Assistant. ...After the Catalogue follow some Memoranda... communicated by the same Mr. Mason."

"The registers of Bradley's observations occupied thirteen folio volumes, and at his death were taken possession of by his executors. In 1767 the Government, under the impression of their being public property, commenced a law-suit with a view to their recovery, which, however, they abandoned in 1776. As soon as it was ascertained that the Government had relinquished their claim, the manuscripts were transmitted to Lord North, who was then Chancellor of the University of Oxford, to be presented by him to the University. They were finally printed, at the expense of the University, in two folio volumes. The first volume was published in 1798, under the superintendence of Dr. Hornsby. The second volume was prepared for the press by Dr. Robertson, and appeared in 1805. These two volumes contain the observations made by Bradley, from 1750 to 1762. The original manuscripts, as well as the registers of the observations made by Bradley, at Greenwich, previous to 1750, are deposited in the , Oxford."

"The issue [of the Nautical Almanac] for 1774 first introduces Mason's improvements of Mayer's Lunar Tables. The preface written by Maskelyne on July 2, 1772, states: To this Ephemeris are annexed 1220 Longitudes and Latitudes of the Moon deduced from the late Dr. Bradley's Observations. ...The greater part of these calculations were made during Dr. Bradley's Lifetime by himself and his Assistant Mr. Charles Mason; and what was left unfinished has been completed by Mr. Mason since, at the Instance and at the Expense of the Board of Longitude. A Series of Observations this for Number and Exactness far excelling anything of the kind which the World ever saw before... Accordingly the Board of Longitude have thought proper to employ Mr. Mason farther in making the necessary calculations for improving Mayer's printed Tables under my Direction..."

"Bradley's first object after his removal to Greenwich was to repair the instruments, and carefully to adjust their positions. Halley had confined himself to the use of the mural quadrant soon after its erection in 1725. Bradley, however, resolved to employ both the quadrant and the transit instrument in his observations. The former of these instruments was repaired by Graham, and the latter by Sisson, several important improvements being at the same time effected in their construction. Bradley's first observation with the quadrant was made on the 15th of June, 1742. His earliest transit observation is dated the 20th of July in the same year."

"The iron quadrant of Graham continued to be attached to the eastern face of the wall erected for its support in 1725, and was employed both by Halley and Bradley in observing the celestial bodies which passed the meridian to the south of the . Bradley however was desirous of extending the plan of his observations and... presented a memorial to the Government in the year 1740, soliciting another quadrant, by means of which the stars that passed the meridian to the north of the zenith might be observed. The Government... at once acceded... and in the following year the observatory was furnished with a magnificent brass quadrant of eight feet radius constructed by Bird, who now took the place of Graham, as the most skilful divider of instruments in his day. ...these were finally subdivided by the micrometer screw to every 1″. The Government at the same time furnished the observatory with a new transit telescope by Bird, eight feet long, besides an excellent clock by Shelton...They also purchased of Bradley the famous zenith sector with which he discovered the phenomena of aberration and nutation, and appropriated it to the use of the observatory. This noble instrument was designed by Bradley to be henceforward employed in determining the errors of collimation of the quadrants, by making observations with it when its face was turned alternately east and west."

"James Bradley, the third Astronomer Royal of Greenwich, was born at Sherbourn, in Gloucestershire, in the year 1692. In 1711 he entered Baliol College, Oxford, where he completed his education. Having qualified himself for the church, he was presented to a living in the year 1719. His predilection for astronomical pursuits, which evinced itself at an early age, was fostered by his uncle, the Rev. . with whom he resided for several years at Wanstead, in Essex. In 1721 he was appointed to the Savilian chair of astronomy in the University of Oxford, which had then become vacant by the death of Keill. His nomination by the Government, as successor to Halley in the Observatory of Greenwich, is dated February 2, 1742. His reputation as an astronomer was already well established in Europe by observations of a miscellaneous nature, and more especially by his immortal discovery of the Aberration of Light, and at the time of his appointment he was actually engaged in those researches which resulted in his discovery of the Nutation of the Earth's axis."

"Of Bradley's original observations on Aberration and Nutation, those results only were known which Bradley himself published in the Philosophical Transactions (No. 406. vol. xxxv. p. 637. and No. 485. vol. xlv. p. I). It was known, however, that these observations were very complete; and it was supposed that a strict and accurate discussion of them would give the values of the constants of Aberration and Nutation with greater exactness, than had hitherto been attained: for, though Bradley himself had gone through the investigation, yet on account of the more extended developement, which the theory of Nutation has undergone in later times, and the recently invented methods of deducing the most probable results from observations, there was reason to expect that we might now obtain much greater precision."

"Mr. Rigaud... imparted his discovery to astronomers in a work, containing much valuable information relating to Bradley, published at Oxford in 1832, under the title of "Miscellaneous Works and Correspondence of the reverend James Bradley." This work contains not only the observations made by Bradley at Wansted, but those also which had been instituted at an earlier period by Molyneux at Kew, and continued there by Molyneux and Bradley conjointly. It contains likewise all the data requisite for a complete investigation of the constants of both elements resulting from Bradley's observations."

"Euler's letter was probably intended for his notice, though addressed to Gael Morris; but there appears to have been no great inclination on Bradley's part to indulge a reciprocal desire. It may be said, that, as we have only the rough copies of his answers, which he may not in every instance have preserved, we do not know the number and extent of them. There certainly were many of which we have no remains; but still he seems to have seldom written unless some particular object required it, and there are repeated occasions on which his correspondents indicate the fact of his not having answered the letters which he had received. If, therefore, his great disinclination from studied composition made him remiss in keeping up an intercourse with such distinguished characters, it is not astonishing that a number of idle letters which were addressed to him may have been wholly unattended to. Many of these have been found among his papers which were wholly unfit for publication."

"Bradley being new in possession of instruments of unequalled perfection, proceeded to execute a series of preliminary observations for the purpose of ascertaining with greater accuracy the latitude of his observatory, the place of the equinox, the quantity and laws of refraction, and other fundamental points of astronomy. In pursuance of this design the brass quadrant was... employed in making observations of s. ...From them Bradley deduced the latitude of the observatory to be 51° 28′ 38½″. He also succeeded by means of them in constructing the elegant rule, so long used by astronomers, for finding the quantity of corresponding to any assigned zenith distance, and any observed readings of the barometer and thermometer. He determined the absolute right ascensions of a few of the principal stars, by means of observations made near the equinoxes, according to the method of Flamsteed."

"P. xxxiii. The time, within which the cause of aberration occurred to Bradley, is still further narrowed by the following extracts from the minutes of 1728, Nov 14: "Dr. Halley took occasion to speak concerning the late improvements in astronomy made from the new discovery of an annual motion of the fixed stars. ...his colleague, the Rev. Mr. Bradley, resolved to fix up another and more accurate instrument... and after fifteen months almost daily observations on fifteen different stars, has at length discovered not only the laws of the motions, but also the true and manifest cause of them." The instrument having been set up at Wansted on the 17th Aug. 1727, the fifteen months would only have been expiring, and from the expressions which are used, it is clear that the completion of the discovery was then quite recent. Halley, at the end of his report, "desired that a proper notice might be taken of this new discovery of Mr. Bradley, to prevent any other person from laying claim to it before he had sufficient time to prepare and adjust his observations and reflexions on this subject for the public." After the communication was finished, Halley concludes his report by saying, that Bradley was sufficiently convinced of his having discovered the true cause of the phenomena, since he was "able to foretell at any time, the situation of a star being given, how much the variation of it will amount unto, and that with so much exactness, that there does not remain any sensible part unaccounted for, which can be supposed to arise from parallax.—The President proposed that thanks might be returned to Mr. Bradley for the great care and pains which he has taken in his application to this subject, and likewise that it would be proper to advise Mr. Bradley, and hasten him to the publication of his thoughts, as soon as conveniently may be.""

"He does not appear to have had much taste for mere abstract mathematics; but his papers prove that he was familiar with those branches which were most useful to him in their application. His demonstration of the laws of aberration is to be taken rather as an historical curiosity, than a test of his geometrical abilities. Every one, who has investigated a new problem, must be aware that the first solution which he devises has seldom been the best. Bradley's sole object, in this case, was to ascertain the rules by which he was to calculate; he had no view to publication; if he had, he might have improved the form, and condensed the substance, of his demonstration. But in this instance, as in others, he was probably checked by a fear of submitting his thoughts to the opinion of the world."

"The astronomical labours of 1743 would have afforded suflicient occupation to any common man; but notwithstanding all that he did in the observatory, Bradley found time, in this same year, to begin a course of experiments on the length of the seconds' pendulum. ...There are papers also on the same subject in Pound's handwriting, which indicate, that, like other scientific labours, it was pursued by them in common. Their apparatus was similar to that which was used by the earlier French philosophers... the length of the pendulum swinging seconds at that place was found to be between 39,14 and 39,168 inches. ...only valuable as the first approximations by which Bradley's mind became familiarized to the inquiry. ...Bradley found the lengths to be 39,13472 inches at a temperature of 68°, and 39,149 at 32°, which give 39,13710 inches for a temperature of 62°. In this no allowance is made for the resistance of the air..."

"Dr. Bradley had the whole British Catalogue calculated to the year 1744; and there are traces therein of his having examined almost every star in it. Indeed I have been well informed that Dr. Bradley observed the British Catalogue twice through; first with the old instruments of the Royal Observatory, previous to 1750; and afterwards with the new ones."

"He set too low a value on his own works, and always feared lest any thing might lower his reputation. His love of accuracy, likewise, acted as an impediment: those who take the most comprehensive views have the clearest knowledge of what may be deficient: he could see the improvements which were desirable, and while he had not yet attained them: he was unwilling to send out any thing to the public in a state which he considered to be imperfect. There was also another circumstance which operated against his publishing to any great extent: he certainly composed with difficulty; his writings are full of erasures; and after repeated transcriptions, his language was not always the happiest in its construction or arrangement. He was not remiss in noting what occurred to him, and making memoranda, where the words, which first occurred to him, were sufficient to register his thoughts, and recall them at any future time to his remembrance: but to dwell on the expressions which he should use, and to employ himself in polishing them for publication, seem to have been a task of irksome difficulty to him. No one writes well, who has not studied and practised it; and no one is inclined to acquire the habit, who does not enjoy some degree of facility in the execution of his purpose. It is not therefore astonishing that the voluminous historian of astronomy should have found that "Bradley n'avait presque rien publiée [Bradley had almost published nothing]." Besides the tables of Jupiter's satellites and a few others of no great extent, all that he could be found to have himself given to the world is comprised in seventy-two pages of the present volume. But when every thing is considered, we have no reason for regret; if he had written more for the press, he must have done less for our information;—the facts which he established, and the discoveries which he made, are of an intrinsic and inestimable value, beyond all comparison with any dissertations, in which he might have enlarged upon them."

"He had found that his instruments were inadequate to the accuracy which he was desirous of giving to his observations, and which he succeeded in attaining when the proper means were afterwards furnished for him. This however was not completed before 1750; and in the interval there were several other objects, of no small importance, which occupied Bradley's attention."

"As soon as Bradley had established these fundamental points he removed the brass quadrant from the western face of the meridian wall, and permanently attached it to the eastern face, where it was afterwards employed in observing the stars that passed the meridian to the south of the zenith. At the same time the iron quadrant was removed from the eastern face of the wall, and, after being re-divided by Bird, was attached to the western face, for the purpose of making observations with the telescope turned towards the north. Bradley now commenced the series of admirable observations which have formed the groundwork of so much valuable research to future enquirers, and which would have assured to him an immortal reputation, even independently of those great discoveries with which his name is inseparably associated. The sun, moon, and principal stars, and the planets when situate in favourable positions, were regularly observed with the transit instrument and the mural quadrants. Moreover, a multitude of small stars, chiefly those of Flamsteed's catalogue were included in the plan of observation. From the year 1750 may be dated the commencement of a series of observations which in point of accuracy may bear a comparison with those of modern times. Henceforward the records of Greenwich Observatory embody a collection of materials, which have almost exclusively formed the groundwork of every investigation undertaken in modern times, for the purpose of improving the solar, lunar, or planetary tables."

"He was not more inclined to write than to speak, for he has published very little; he had a natural diffidence, which made him always afraid, that his works should injure his character, therefore suppressed many, which probably, were well worthy of the public attention. He was even known as it were, in spight of himself; and, in spight of himself he was known much, and consequently much esteemed. ...He was honoured by all men of learning in general, and there was not an astronomer of any eminence in the world, with whom he had not a literary correspondence."