322 Life of the Rev. John Flamsteed, [Nov. 



Creator. Man's active soul had acted now too far to gain 

 by a recession what his over-active inquisitiveness had in- 

 duced on him ; for he ejected from his pleasant habitation 

 his children, made heirs of the fruits of his fall; and the 

 earth (which formerly produced, of its own accord, sufficient 

 for human necessity) is cursed for his sake, that he might 

 earn his bread forth of his labour, and keep himself from 

 worse employment by his necessary action : for we, who are 

 Adam's heirs by birth, observe that those are generally 

 worst employed who have least to do ; and idleness is the 

 prodrome of other evils. 



To keep myself from idleness, and to recreate myself, I 

 have intended here to give some account of my life, in my 

 youth, before the actions thereof, and the providences of 

 God therein, be too far passed out of memory ; and to observe 

 the accidents of all my years, and inclinations of my mind, 

 that whosoever may light upon these papers may see I was 

 not so wholly taken up, either with my father's business or 

 my mathematics, but that I both admitted and found time 

 for other as weighty considerations. 



I was born at Denby, in Derbyshire, in the year 1646, on 

 the 19th day of August, at 7^- 16™- after noon. My father, 

 named Stephen, was the third son of Mr. William Flam- 

 steed, of Little Hallam ; my mother, Mary, was the daughter 

 of Mr. John Spateman, of Derby, ironmonger. From these 

 two I derived my beginning, whose parents were of known 

 integrity, honesty, and fortune, as they [were] of equal 

 extraction and ingenuity ; betwixt whom I [was] tenderly 

 educated (by reason of my natural weakness, which required 

 more thau an ordinary care) till I was aged three years and 

 a fortnight ; when my mother departed, leaving my father 

 a daughter, then not a month old, with me, then weak, to 

 his fatherly care and provision. She died on September 7, 

 1649. 



It was three years after my own mother's death, that my 

 father could so well digest as to accept a second marriage ; 

 which then he did, and married Elizabeth Bates, who, after 

 she had lived with him an year and ten months, brought 

 him my sister Katherine : after which, just on that day 

 two years after my father brought her home, she died, 

 (November 1, 1654). And now my father had me, my sisters 



