132 Nevil Maskelyne, D.D., F.B.S., Astronomer Royal. 



France; foreign member of the Royal Society of Gottingen, 1771 ; 

 and Fellow of the American Academy of Massachusetts, 1778. 



He was presented to the living of Shrawardine, in Shropshire, 

 by his nephew, the second Lord Clive, in 1775, and to the living of 

 North Runcton, in Norfolk, in 1782, by his college, when he re- 

 signed the former living. 



His numerous notebooks contain information of the most varied 

 kind, from mathematical problems and methods for improving the 

 instruments under his care, down to new ways of sweeping chimneys, 

 curing of hams, &c, and show a careful and exact mind, accurate 

 even in the minute details of daily life. 



" Every astronomer, every learned man, found in him a brother " 

 is a remark made of him by M. Delambre, adding M. Chabert's 

 testimony to his kindly reception of foreigners, then driven to take 

 refuge in England, and his delicate and generous conduct towards 

 them ; and the same testimony is borne by M. Grosley, in his book, 

 " Londres " (three vols., 1770), where he says of him : — 



" Chez lequel je trouvai une politesse et une complaisance que les savants de ce 

 rang n'ont pas toujours pour les passants." 



In the " Memoirs of Caroline Herschel " she makes many most 

 pleasant allusions to the friendship existing between herself and 

 Dr. Maskelyne — and several of his letters to her are there published, 

 in one of which he calls her " my worthy sister in astronomy." 

 After every discovery of a comet she hastened to inform him of it, 

 and her brother, William Herschel, 1 in writing to Sir J. Banks, 

 P.R.S., on one of these occasions, says : — " The Astronomer Royal 

 in particular obtained a very good set of valuable observations on 

 its path." She seems to have felt great pleasure in helping Dr. 

 Maskelyne, as she had helped her brother, by copying out lists of 



1 W. Herschel, afterwards Sir William Herschel, Bart., was made Royal 

 Astronomer in 1782 by King George III., with a pension of £200 a year, in 

 acknowledgment of his services to science in making great and powerful 

 telescopes. The title given to him by George III. is misleading to those who do 

 not know it was a private royal appointment, and entirely distinct from that of 

 Astronomer Royal of England, held by Dr. Maskelyne from 1765 to 1811. 



