XXXIV 



out of society. There is extant a letter of his (Oct. 30, 1840) to a busi- 

 ness associate, who had remonstrated in the usual way. " There is," he 

 says, " one circumstance which gave me much pain in a letter you wrote to 

 my late father some time since. You alluded to my position as Treasurer 

 and Vice-President of the Royal Society . . . But if by rising early and 

 late taking rest, or if in hours which others devote to society or sports 

 of the field, I choose to investigate questions in astronomy, or in any 

 other science, I do not consider that any of the correspondents of the 

 house are warranted in addressing to me any reproach. I submit these 

 remarks to your friendly consideration." 



After his father's death he withdrew almost entirely from society, and 

 resided at High Elms, in Kent. Here he showed that there was time left 

 from the wants both of business and of science. He was a farmer, and 

 his southdowns and shorthorns (in which Lord Althorp himself did not 

 take more pride than he) carried oiF many prizes. He planted choice 

 shrubs and trees, especially conifers ; he kept up three village schools ; and 

 he instructed his own children in mathematics. The old man of (nothing 

 but) business might shake his head and say. Ah! that house will never stand 

 what it stood under old Sir John : but, nevertheless, it kept up both credit 

 and confidence, and joined another old bank in 1860. The firm of Ro- 

 barts, Lubbock, and Co. has fully answered all expectations. By this junc- 

 tion Sir J. Lubbock had intended to give himself comparative leisure : for 

 fifteen years he had never been away from business for three consecutive 

 days. The leisure was gained, but the power of using it was gone ; the 

 work of two lives was a run upon the strength of one which ended in 

 failure. He became a sufferer from gout, and the last five years of his 

 life were marked by increasing debility. He died Januaiy 20, 1865, the 

 immediate cause being valvular disease in the heart. He often said he had 

 done his work and was quite ready to go. He leaves behind him the memory 

 of an upright and benevolent man, utterly free from selfseeking, and devoted 

 to high pursuits by high moral motives and strong intellectual impulses. 



Sir J. Lubbock's researches in the lunar and planetary theories date 

 from the year 1832 ; his separate work, * On the Theory of theMoon and on 

 the Perturbations of the Planets,' was pubhshed, the principal portion, dur- 

 ing the years 1834 to 1838, but there are supplementary parts up to 1850. 



In the lunar theory, as originally established by Clairaut, the true longi- 

 tude of the moon is taken as the independent variable ; and Laplace was 

 of opinion that, on account of the magnitude of the lunar inequalities, this 

 was, in fact, the only safe course ; it was accordingly adopted by him in 

 his own researches, and also in Damoiseau's memoir, in the uHpublished 

 memoir of Carlini and Plana, and in Plana' s great work on the lunar 

 theory. The time or mean longitude of the moon, and the radius vector 

 and latitude, are in the first instance obtained in terms of the true longi- 

 tude of the moon, and then by reversion of series, the true longitude, 

 the radius vector, and the latitude are expressed in terms of the time. 



