o/" Thomas Wright of Durham. 251 



Wright, the distinct supposition that the iiebulse are other 

 specimens of constellative systems, and that these systems, 

 with our own, may be but parts of a larger one, and so on. 

 He also declares for Sirius as the central body of our system. 

 Wright considers Sirius merely as our nearest neighbour. 



There is an account of Thomas Wright (with a good por- 

 trait) in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1793, vol. Ixiii. pp. 9, 

 126, 213. He was born at Byer's Green, about six miles 

 from the city of Durham, September 22, 1711, the son of a 

 carpenter, a small landholder. He was apprenticed to a 

 clock-maker, then went to sea, and afterwards struggled for 

 many years as a maker of almanacs, a lecturer, and a teacher 

 of mathematics. During this time he published some works. 

 At last he seems to have risen into note as a teacher of the 

 sciences in noble families ; and we find him in affluence to- 

 wards the end of his life, but how it came is not stated. He 

 built himself a handsome house at Byer's Green in 1756-62, 

 and died there February 25, 1786. By various communica- 

 tions made by him to the Gentleman's Magazine from 1744 

 upwards, it appears that he was an observer, particularly of 

 comets, a calculator of their elements, &c. In his younger 

 days he was employed by Heath and Sisson as a maker of 

 mathematical instruments; and he wrote on navigation and 

 taught it with a reputation which procured him, in 1742, an 

 offer of the professorship of navigation in the Imperial Aca- 

 demy of St Petersburg. He was moreover an engraver, and 

 even executed the plates for some of his own works ; and as 

 the one which I have described has so many (juarto plates, 

 effectively done in mezzotinto, and without the name of any 

 engraver attached, I conclude, in spite of "by the best masters" 

 in the title-page, they are of Wright's own workmanship. He 

 had some acquired scholarship, but not of a very profound 

 cast. 



I learn from Professor Chevallier, of the University of 

 Durham, to whom I am indebted for the references to the Gen- 

 tleman's Magazine, that when the library of Mr. Allan of Dar- 

 lington, the author of the memoir cited, was sold by auction 

 in London in 1822, it contained, as the memoir states, the ori- 

 ginal copper of several of Wright's plates. And further, that 

 Wright appears to have been consulted on matters of taste : 

 for tliat in the chapter library of Durham there is a design by 

 him for some alterations in the Cathedral, including an orna- 

 mented battlement widi finials upon the western towers; which 

 design was carried into execution, as is to be seen. 



Tlie works by Wright which are mentioned in the memoir, 

 are some calculations of eclipses (single leaves, I suppose, 



