First Astronomer-Royal. 17 



to pay me £10 for every press fault I should find in it; 

 and, within four days after, a friend sent me the constella- 

 tions of Aries and Taurus, fairly printed; and, in a day 

 or two after, that of Virgo. So that I was now convinced 

 that the press was at work, and that the Doctor had told 

 me what he knew was not true. I learnt, at the same time, 

 (what had been intimated to me before) that Mr. Halley 

 took care of the press, and pretended that he had found 

 many faults in my catalogue ; showed some sheets of it 

 publicly in Child's Coffee-house, at St. Paul's, and boasted 

 what pains he had been at in correcting them. 



I had told Dr. Arbuthnot, in one of my letters, (April 

 18th, 1711), that one of Dr. Halley's best friends, and the 

 wisest of them, had said of him, " that the only way to 

 have my business spoiled effectually was to trust it to his 

 management." Now, the truth of this expression was 

 proved : for I found not only the names of the stars in my 

 catalogue altered, but the numbers also in many places 

 changed, and others put in their room that were sometimes 

 fifteen minutes false; and, therefore, it was very effectually 

 spoiled. And, by boasting of these corrections, as he called 

 them, he would insinuate to the world that they were more 

 obliged to him for his pains in correcting than they were 

 to me for above thirty years spent in composing it ; the 

 cost of making instruments and hiring assistants at my own 

 charge. For, by altering the names (to make them agree 

 with his own faulty hemisphere) he had made himself in 

 some sort (but a very bad one) a proprietor in that cata- 

 logue he printed without my name to it, or ever consulting 

 me about it ; which I would never consent to, as they well 

 know by my letter to Sir Christopher Wren, which had 

 been imparted to Sir Isaac Newton ; and Halley was not 

 ignorant of it. 



On June 23, 1711, he delivered to my niece, Mrs. Hodg- 

 son, a fair copy of all the sheets of the catalogue, but without 

 any preface to it. When I examined it I found more faults 

 in it, and greater than I imagined the impudent editor either 

 could or durst have committed. He had taken no care to 

 put those into their proper order which I had left digested 

 to his hands ; because I had not yet got occasion to com- 

 plete the constellations to which they belonged, particularly 



