THE ENGLISH PRECURSORS OF NEWTON. 675 



found time, however, for astronomical observations, and in 1636 his 

 zeal for his favorite pursuit was still further quickened by meeting with 

 a congenial spirit in William Crabtree, a clothier of Broughton, near 

 Manchester, one of a remarkable group of north-country mathemati- 

 cians, to whom Fate was as unkind in the untimeliness of their deaths 

 as in the obscurity of their lives. Encouraged by his new friend, 

 Horrocks quickly exchanged the guidance of Lansberg for that of 

 Kepler, henceforward the object of his enthusiastic but by no means 

 undiscriminating devotion. Even in the Kudolphine Tables he dis- 

 covered inaccuracies, trifling, it is true, in comparison with the boast- 

 ful blundering of the reactionary Belgian astronomer, but requiring, 

 nevertheless, careful correction ; and in the accomplishment of this 

 task he convinced himself that a transit of Venus, which Kepler had 

 failed to predict, would actually occur on November 24 (O. S.), 1639. 

 He had by this time taken orders in the Church of England, and been 

 appointed to the curacy of Hoole, then a desolate hamlet situated on 

 a strip of land half reclaimed from the overflow of the Ribble, about 

 five miles south of Preston. It was here that, first among astronomers 

 of all ages, he observed the passage of Venus across the sun. 



Tbe 24th of November fell on a Sunday, and, as the critical mo- 

 ment approached, the eager star-gazer was summoned from his tele- 

 scope to his pulpit, returning, however, just in time to witness, as the 

 clouds parted at a quarter-past three, the punctual verification of his 

 forecast in the projection of the dark body of the planet on the solar 

 disk. An inteiwal of half an hour before sunset gave him time to 

 make a series of observations surprisingly accurate considering the 

 primitive character of the apparatus available for their execution. A 

 telescope bought for half a crown, and a circle of six inches in diame- 

 ter, traced with a pair of compasses on a sheet of paper, stood to the 

 young curate of Hoole in the stead of all the complicated and exqui- 

 sitely delicate instruments which form the intermediaries between the 

 senses of a modern astronomer and the phenomena he observes. Hor- 

 rocks did not long survive this solitary triumph of his life. After 

 many postponements, he at length saw a prospect of one day's extrica- 

 tion from his conflicting employments, and fixed January 4, 1641, for 

 a visit of science and sympathy to his friend Crabtree. On the morn- 

 ing of the 3d, however, he suddenly expired, thus exchanging, in a 

 moment, his promised post among the radiant ranks of those who con- 

 stitute the pride of humanity for a place in the pathetic company of 

 " the inheritors of unfulfilled renown." 



The career of Horrocks affords, throughout its course, a singular 

 example of precocity. He matriculated at thirteen, was ordained at 

 twenty, and died before he had completed his twenty-second year. 

 On him, if on any man, might safely be passed the usually somewhat 

 problematical eulogium, " He had done great things had he lived." 

 His mind was as quick to catch the differences of things like as it was 



