THE 
PHILGSOPHICAL MAGAZINE. 
¥, Memoirs of the Life and Works of the late Dr. MasKr- 
LYNE; read at the Public Meeting of the National In 
slitute of France, January 4, 1813, by A. DELAMBRE, 
Secretary ; translated from the French and communicated 
by a Correspondent, Juze 1813. 
Nevi Masxetyne, D.D.F.R.S. Astronomer Royal at 
Greenwich ; member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, 
and also one of the eight foreign associates of the Class of 
Philosophy and Mathematics of the Imperial Institute ; 
was Both | in London, the 6th of October 1732, of an Aen 
cient family long settled in the West of England. At nine 
years of age he was placed at Westminster school, where 
he soon distinguished himself. At an early period of his 
life he showed a taste for optics and astronomy ; but what 
attached him to the prosecution of these studies was the 
eclipse of the sun in 1748, of which ten digits were eclipsed 
at London. It is very remarkable that this eclipse pro- 
duced the same effect on the mind of Lalande, who was 
only three months older than Maskelyne; and it may with 
truth be observed that no celestial phenomenon was ever 
more useful to science than this eclipse, which gave her 
two such very distinguished astronomers, who . pursued 
this science under different views, each taking the depart- 
ment most agreeable to his own taste. One wrote largely 
in all the branches of astronomy, and instructed others 
with great success, but made few observations; the other 
has written comparatively little, but his numerous observa- 
tions are universally acknowledged to possess an unrivalled 
degree of accuracy. Maskelyne perceived how much the 
gcience-of mathematics was necessary in the line his in- 
Vol. 42. No, 183, July 1813, AZ clination 
