64' Memoir of the late Francis Baily, Esq.^ F.R.S., ^c. 



the fiime and character of its author their defender and rescuer 

 from grievous misapprehension and misstatement. 



In 1832 it happened, by a most singular coincidence, that 

 Mr. Baily became aware of the existence, in the possession of 

 his opposite neighbour in the same street, E. Giles, Esq., of 

 the whole of Flamsteed's autograph letters to Abraham Sharp, 

 and was permitted to peruse and copy them. Their perusal 

 convinced him that Flamsteed's life, astronomical labours, and 

 personal character, had never been fairly placed before the 

 world, and induced him to examine with care the mass of his 

 papers preserved (or rather neglected and mouldering) at 

 Greenwich. His first care was to arrest the progress of their 

 further decay. His next, to avail himself of the original en- 

 tries of the observations, and of the manuscript records of the 

 computations founded on them, to trace out the sources, and 

 to rectif}' the numerous errors and inconsistencies of the 'Bri- 

 tish Catalogue' as it then stood before the world, and to pre- 

 sent it to the public under quite a new aspect — as a noble 

 monument of its author's skill and devotion, and a work worthy 

 of the age and country which produced it. Among the papers 

 thus examined, however, were also found an almost complete 

 autobiography of Flamsteed, and a voluminous correspond- 

 ence illustrative of those points so painfully at issue between 

 Flamsteed, Newton, and Halley, relative to the publication of 

 the Catalogue and observations, and to other matters of a more 

 personal nature, which had hitherto all along been stated in 

 an infinitely more unfavourable light towards Flamsteed than 

 that which appears from Mr. Baily's thorough and volumi- 

 nous exposition of the whole affair, and the evidence of the 

 almost innumerable letters which he has printed at length, 

 truly and properly to belong to them. Indeed it seems im- 

 possible not to admit, on the evidence here produced, that 

 great and grievous injustice was done, and hardship imposed, 

 in these transactions on Flamsteed, whose character stands 

 forward, on the whole showing, as that of a most devoted and 

 painstaking astronomer, working at extreme disadvantage, 

 under most penurious arrangements on the part of govern- 

 ment, making every sacrifice, both personal and pecuniary, 

 and embroiled (as I cannot help considering, by the misrepre- 

 sentations and misconduct of Halley) with the greatest man 

 of his own or any other age, holding a position with respect 

 to the Observatory, as Visitor, which, under mistaken im- 

 pressions of the true bearings of the case, might cause severity 

 to assume the guise of public duty. 



The volume which contains this important v/ork of Mr. 

 Baily was commenced (as we have seen) in 1832, and pub- 



