132 Mr Baily's Account of 



teen years old, he caught a violent cold from bathing ; the ef- 

 fects of which he felt as long as he lived, and which at this time 

 rendered him so weak, for many years, that he was scarcely able 

 to go to school ; and, at length, in May 1662, he finally left it. 

 Being thus withdrawn from school (although not quite sixteen 

 years old) he commenced at that early age a system of study 

 and observation which he pursued unremittingly till the time of 

 his death. In the very same year that he left school, he ob- 

 served and recorded an eclipse of the sun, a circumstance which 

 shews his early predilection for astronomy ; and nearly the 

 whole of his leisure time (leisure, alas, from sickness) was, even 

 in this period of boyhood, employed in mathematical studies 

 and astronomical observations, which he pursued, self-taught, 

 and unassisted ; the details of which, written by himself, will 

 be found in the present work. A portion of his time, also, was 

 occupied in mechanical exercises ; for he contrived and con- 

 structed a quadrant for taking altitudes ; and, moreover, em- 

 ployed himself in grinding glasses for telescopes. Flamsteed 

 was naturally of a weak constitution, which was probably in- 

 creased by the accident just mentioned. His father tried every 

 means of alleviating and removing his complaint ; and, finding 

 that|the disorder did not yield to medicine, at length assented 

 to his son''s request to proceed to Ireland, in order to be touched 

 by Mr Valentine Greatrakes, a celebrated empiric of that day, 

 who|pretended to cure his patients by a process somewhat simi- 

 lar to the modern practice of animal magnetism. He started 

 for Ireland on August 16, 1665 ; and he appears even then to 

 have had that remarkable habit of noting down in regular or- 

 der the most minute occurrences and opinions of his life, which 

 he retained to the day of his death ; for he has left on record a 

 complete narrative of this journey, detailing a variety of cir- 

 cumstances that occurred on the way. He returned to Derby 

 on September 13, having been absent nearly a month from 

 home. 



I have been thus minute in these early dates, for a reason 

 which will appear in the sequel, where it will be seen, that they 

 bear^materially on a very eventful and critical period of Flam- 

 steed's life. For he is accused by a modern writer (with what 

 appearance of trut^, or even probability, the reader will pre- 



