132 MEMOIR OF DELAMBRE. 
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years passed away in the bosom of friendship, confidence, and peace; in con 
genial occupations, and the exercise of mutual kindness. In the mean time 
Delambre had succeeded Lalande in the chair of astronomy at the College of 
France, and was appointed one of the principal te¢ularies of the ‘university. 
For twenty years that he exercised in one of the classes of the Institute and 
in the Royal Academy of Sciences the function bestowed on him by the suf- 
frages of his colleagues, he cannot be said to have ever once swerved from the 
line of strict impartiality and equity ; and though fidelity to such duties be but 
the acquittal of an obligation, and no proper subject for formal eulogy, yet it 
can never be useless to cite as an example that earnestness of purpose which 
always animated him, or that considerate indulgence which was so much a part 
of his nature that no personal motive or even injustice could affect it. In his 
annual reports, in the historic eulogies which he gave to the public, and in his 
delineations of the progress of science, we everywhere trace the consummate 
erudition which distinguished him, and recognize a talent for writing formed 
upon the noblest models. Above all, we would signalize that peculiar tempera- 
ment which made it for him an agreeable and easy ofiice to exhibit the preduc- 
tions of others in the most favorable light, while at the same time he did not 
permit himself the slightest deviation from the truth of history. 
His literary and scientific labors were 80 numerous and extensive that we can 
scarcely be expected to recount them, or even distinctly to explain their objects. 
Sufiice it to say that, besides all the works or memoirs which he published separ- 
ately, or inserted in the academic collections of Paris, Berlin, and ‘Turin, and in 
that known as “La Connaissance des Temps,” [we have from his hand a com- 
plete historical series, comprising “ The History of Ancient Astronomy,” in 2 
vols. 4to., 1817; “The History of the Astronomy of the Middle Ages,” 1 vol. 
4to., 1819; “The History of Modern Astronomy,” 2 vols. 4to., 1821; ‘ The 
History of Astronomy in the Eighteenth Century,” and “ The History of the 
Measurement of the Earth,” the two latter having been published since his death; 
of which works it has been justly said “that no other country has produced 
anything of the same kind of equal extent and value.”] The enumeration of 
such labors would constitute the most unequivocal title to literary merit, as being 
calculated to display it in all its brilliancy without effort or exaggeration. If 
this test were applied to the works of Delambre we could not be deceived as to 
the rank they must occupy in the history of the sciences. Before him astro- 
nomical calculations were founded on numerical processes, which were at once 
indirect and irregular. These he has changed throughout, or ingeniously re- 
modelled. Most of those which astronomers use at the present time belong to 
him, having been deduced from analytic formulas, which, in their application, 
have been found alike sure, uniform, and manageable. The new tables which 
he has given us of the sun, of Jupiter, of Saturn, of Uranus, and of the satellites 
of Jupiter, at least some of them, may have been considerably improved by re- 
cent labors founded on a greater number of exact observations ; yet, in the pre- 
sent state of astronomy, and up to this day, the tables of Delambre just mentioned 
are those employed in the calculations made for the “‘Connaissance des Temps” 
and for the nautical and astronomical ephemerides of most nations. In addition, 
the geodetic operation, for which we are chiefly indebted to him, and of which 
he bore the greatest share, is the most perfect and extensive which has been 
executed in any country. It has served as the model of all enterprises of the 
kind which have been since projected. 
That the labors of Delambre should have had this influence on the method 
of astronomy is the more remarkable, considering the somewhat advanced age 
at which he came to the cultivation of the science. He was more than thirty- 
five when he began to practice observations. The history of the sciences, how- 
ever, is not without such examples. Newton, it is true, was in possession of all 
his great mathematical discoveries at an age which Leibnitz had not yet attained 
