524< Royal Society. 



ciety, and various other subjects of political and theological contro- 

 versy. In 1816 he was appointed Bishop of Llandaff; and three 

 years afterwards he was translated to the see of Peterborough. In 

 the course of a few years from this time, his health, which had been 

 already undermined by his sedentary habits and severe studies, be- 

 gan rajjidly to decline, and he was compelled to abstain from the 

 active duties of his professorship and from the exciting labours of 

 controversy; and though his infirmities continued to increase both 

 in number and severity, yet his life was prolonged to a mature old 

 age by the vigilant and anxious care and nursing of one of the most 

 exemplary and affectionate of wives. 



Dr. Marsh was a man of great learning and very uncommon vigour 

 of mind, and as a writer, remarkable for the great precision of his 

 language and his singular clearness in the statement of his argument. 

 His lectures on Divinity are a most valuable contribution to the 

 theological student, and his " Comparative View of the Churches of 

 England and Rome" presents one of the most masterly views of the 

 great principles which distinguish those churches, which has ever 

 appeared from the pen of a Protestant writer. His controversial 

 writings, though generally full of acuteness and ability, must be ex- 

 pected to share the fate of all productions which are not kept from 

 perishing by the permanent existence of the interests, of wliatever 

 nature, which gave rise to them : and we may justly lament that 

 learning and powers of reasoning of so extraordinary a character, 

 were not more exclusively and steadily devoted to the completion of 

 more durable and systematic theological labours. 



The father of the late Professor Rigaud had the care of the 

 King's Observatory at Kew, an appointment which probably influ- 

 enced the early tastes and predilections of his son. He Avas ad- 

 mitted a member of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1791, at the early 

 age of sixteen, and continued to reside there as fellow and tutor 

 until 1810, when he was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry. 

 He afterwards succeeded to the care of the RadclifFe Observatory, 

 and the noble suite of instruments by Bird, with which it is fur- 

 nished, was augmented, on his recommendation, by a new transit 

 and circle, so as to fit it for the most refined purposes of modern 

 practical astronomy : and we venture to express a hope that it will 

 shortly become equally efficient and useful with the similar esta- 

 blishment which exists in the sister university. 



Professor Rigaud published, in 1831, the miscellaneous works and 

 correspondence of Bradley, to which he afterwards added a very 

 interesting supplement on the astronomical papers of Harriott. In 

 1838, he published some curious notices of the first publication of 

 the Principia of Newton; and he had also projected a life of Halley, 

 with a view of rescuing the memory of that great man from much 

 of the obloquy to which it has been exposed ; he had made exten- 

 sive collections for a new edition of the mathematical collections of 

 Pappus ; and he was the author of many valuable communications 

 to the Transactions of the Royal Astronomical Society, and to 

 other scientific journals, on various subjects connected with physical 

 and astronomical science. There was probably no other person of 



