JOHN WINTHROP. 43 



contributed to the Memorial History of Boston by Prof. Joseph 

 Lovering, who for over fifty years occupied the same pro- 

 fessorship that Winthrop held. " Prof. Winthrop was fortu- 

 nate," says Prof. Lovering, " in living at a time when he could 

 be a witness of three celestial occurrences of transcendent 

 importance to the progress of astronomy namely, the first 

 predicted return of Halley's comet in 1759, after an absence of 

 twenty-seven years, and the transits of Venus across the sun in 

 1761 and 1769. In 1759 the accuracy of astronomical predic- 

 tion was on its trial, and months before the time of the expected 

 visit astronomers were at their posts and looking; but they 

 were all anticipated by a Saxon peasant, who first saw the 

 comet on December 25, 1758. Winthrop saw it on April 3, 

 1759." He delivered two lectures on comets at this time, 

 which were printed the same year, and reprinted in 1811. Prof. 

 Winthrop also observed the comets of 1769 and of 1770, "one 

 remarkable for its brilliancy and the other for the disturbances 

 which Jupiter inflicted upon its orbit," and contributed accounts 

 of the phenomena to the Boston newspapers. 



Like the earthquake already mentioned, the comet of 1759 

 aroused considerable popular apprehension, and the following 

 passage from one of Winthrop's lectures, in which he essayed 

 to calm this feeling, will serve as a good sample of his style : 

 " It may not be unseasonable to remark, for a conclusion, that 

 as, on the one hand, it argues a temerity unworthy a philo- 

 sophic mind, to explode every apprehension of danger from 

 comets, as if it were impossible that any damage could ever be 

 occasioned by any of them, because some idle and superstitious 

 fancies have in times of ignorance prevailed concerning them ; 

 so on the other, to be thrown into a panic whenever a comet 

 appears, on account of the ill effects which some few of these 

 bodies might possibly produce, if they were not under a proper 

 direction, betrays a weakness equally unbecoming a reasonable 

 being." 



The transits of Venus, which were not to occur again until 

 1874 and 1882, were precious opportunities for astronomical 

 work, and preparations were widely made to take advantage of 

 them. The governor of the province, Francis Bernard, was 

 interested in the matter by Prof. Winthrop, and sent a message 

 to the House of Representatives, stating that the King of 

 England had sent " a Man-of-War with Mathematicians to be 



