516 Royal Astronomical Society. 



social evils, — every improvement in the law, — every evidence, how- 

 ever slight, of disposition to act, think, or hope, for the better, 

 brought before him his cherished prospect of the final state of man- 

 kind, and was, in his opinion, only a step towards it. The conse- 

 quence was, that any one who would wish to describe his age, must 

 simply invert each and all of the characteristics which Horace* 

 makes significative of the advanced periods of life. 



Mr. Frend's scientific writings were particularly distinguished by 

 simplicity and earnestness. The greater part of the whole consists 

 in short pamphlets, or communications to periodical publications ; 

 and many proofs might be given, both of the extreme importance he 

 attached to truth, and of his conviction that error, even in matters 

 of science, is a noxious weed in the field of morals. His principal 

 distinct writings on subjects of science are his 'Algebra' (Part i. 1796, 

 Part ii. 1799), and his ' Evening Amusements' (1804-1822). The 

 latter was an astronomical elementary work of a new character, which 

 had great success ; and the earlier numbers went through several 

 editions. It embraces a metonic cycle, and therefore describes the 

 places of the moon, in a manner which would make it useful for a 

 considerable time to come, in the elementary instruction for which 

 it was intended. This present year is that which answers to 1804, 

 so that the opportunity to repeat the process of instruction, so far 

 as the moon is concerned, has just commenced. The phsenomena 

 of the different months are described, and to each month is usually 

 attached a short religious reflection, an account of some astronomical 

 process or discovery, a hit at the Newtonian philosophy, or some 

 such preface. We do not see much acquaintance with the new doc- 

 trines of physics, which had then excited attention for some years ; 

 but it must be remembered that a man, who took his degree at Cam- 

 bridge in 1780, had very little training in experimental deduction 

 apart from mathematics. 



Mr. Frend's scientific peculiarities strongly illustrate what those 

 who have carefully considered the reading of that time will perhaps 

 think to be the natural consequence of it, upon an exceedingly 

 honest, clear, and decided mind, placed in circumstances favourable 

 to the development of opposition. The Cambridge student was 

 isolated from experimental physics by the habits of his university, 

 and from the progress of mathematics by its adherence to the flux- 

 ional notation. In essentials, the academic system was nearer to 

 what it might have been at the death of Newton than those who 

 now see its state could readily imagine to be possible : the theory 

 of gravitation was taken wholly and solely from the Principia ; no 

 Englishman had made the smallest addition to it; and Clairaut, 

 D'Alembert, &c. were only known by name as French philosophers, 



* " Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda ; vel quod 

 Quaerit, et inventis miser abstinet, ac timet uti, 

 Vel quod res omnes timide gelideque ministrat ; 

 Dilator, spe longus, iners, avidusque futuri, 

 Difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti 

 Sepuero, censor castigatorqueminorum." 



