iSz Account of the late Peter Charles he Momilcr. 



to determine the parallax of the moon, which never had 

 been accurately afcertained. On this occalion Le Monnier 

 lent to his pupil his five feet mural quadrant. His zeal for 

 the promotion of aftronomy was bou'ndltfs ; and therefore 

 Lalande fays, in his Notice des Travaux du C. Le Monnier, 

 " I myfelf am the principal rcfultof his zeal for aftronomy." 



Le Monnier was naturally of a very irritable difpofition, 

 and, though warm in his friendfhip, was eafily offended : in 

 that cafe his hatred was irreconcileable. Lalande, as he fays 

 himfelf, had the misfortune to incur the difpleafure of his 

 preceptor, for whom he entertained the utmod: aflfeclion, and 

 whofe good graces he was never able to recover. But Lalande 

 never ceafed to fliow his efteem and gratitude for him till the 

 Jateft day of his life. " I never ceafed to declare," fays La- 

 lande, " as Diogenes did to his mafter Antifthenes, You will 

 never find a baton fufficiently heavy to drive me away from 

 you." In the year 1797 Lalande wrote an eulogy on Le 

 Monnier for the Connoijfance des Terns, annse 9, which dif- 

 played the utmoft refpeft and efteem of the pupil towards his 

 preceptor; but Le Monnier would never read it *■. 



Hennert, that celebrated geometrician and profeffbr of ma- 

 thematics at Utrecht, may alfo be confidered as a fcholar of 

 Le Monnier, as appears by the following extract: from one of 

 his letters, dated May 26, 1797 : — " Le Monnier is an acute 

 and philofophic aftronomer. I learned a great deal from him 

 ■while I refided at Paris, though I lodged at the houfe of the 

 late De I'lfie, where I often obferved with Meflier. Le 

 Monnier was a great friend of D'Alembert, and confequently 

 an opponent of Lalande." 



Le Monnier left behind him a great many valuable ma- 

 nufcripts and a multitude of excellent obfervations, which he 

 was very fond of keeping to himfelf, and which, in the latter 

 period of his life, he never made known. Befides others, he 

 had a feries of important obfervations of the moon, and a 

 great many obfervations of ftars, made for a catalogue, which 



* It may not be improper hcrt; to remark, that Lalande had a great 

 friendftiip and refpe£l for that eminent aflionomer La Cailie, whom Le 

 Monnier mortally hated. Le Monnier and D' Alenr.beit were alio great- 

 friends, but Lalande had no kind of intimacy with the latter. 



he 



