128 iVmV Maskelyne, D.D., F.R.S., Astronomer Royal 



kl I am impatient to hear/' writes, in 1700, their cousin the 

 Honble. Mrs. Hervey, to Captain Edmund Maskelyne, the second 

 son (then in India with his life-long friend and brother-in-law, 

 Lord Olive), "how poor Nevil does. It's pity great abilities has 

 not larger purses." And yet the slender purse, perhaps, counted 

 for something in the different issue of the brothers' lives. 



Elizabeth Maskelyne, his mother, died in the winter of 174 1-. 

 " Poor Neice Maskelyne died of a Palsey," is the note in the diary 

 of her aunt, Mrs. Katherine Howard. Thus, when he was just 

 15, Nevil became an orphan in respect to botli his parents. 



The nature and extent of his life's work will best appear from a 

 chronological statement of what he did. 



As before stated Nevil Maskelyne was educated at Westminster ; 

 and afterwards successively at Catherine Hall, Pembroke Hall, and 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his B.A. degree in 1754 ; M.A., 

 in 1757; Trinity fellowship, in 1757; B.D. degree, in 1768; and 

 D.D., in 1777. 



He says of himself that : — 



" it was from occasional discourses in the family that he became eager to see the 

 effect of telescopes and to know more of the system of the universe. The 

 observing of the great eclipse of the sun in 1748 with Mr. Ayscough in an 

 unusual manner by nseans of the sun's image projected through a telescope on a 

 white screen iu camera obscura added fresh spur to his astronomical desires. . . ." 



It is a singular coincidence that to this same eclipse the French 

 astronomer Lalande owed also his introduction to astronomy. He 

 was only three months older than Nevil Maskelyne, and was his 

 correspondent and friend to the end of his life. 



In 1755 Maskelyne accepted a curacy at Barnet, and about this 

 time became acquainted with the then Astronomer Poyal, Dr. 

 Bradley, whom he assisted in his astronomical calculations. 



In 1758 he was elected Fellow of the Eoyal Society, and became 

 an important contributor to the Philosophical Transactions. 



In 1761 he was chosen by the Koyal Society to go to the Island 

 of St. Helena to observe the transit of Venus. The cloudy state of 

 the weather prevented this observation, and the imperfections of 

 his instruments frustrated other intentions connected with the 



