408 



Biographical Account of 



considerable it would not continue to be given to an astronomer. 

 The disinterested precaution of Bradley claims our admiration ; 

 but if when he refused any thing for himself, he had laid hold 

 of the opportunity of demanding a fund for printing the obser- 

 vations, the Queen would doubtless have acceded to the demand, 

 and he would have saved the disputes which during 40 years 

 prevented the appearance of his labours. Bradley allowed a 

 favourable opportunity to escape, Maskelyne produced one. He 

 procured his observations to be annually printed at the expense 

 of the Royal Society. It was by this means that he deserved to 

 be, as he was for 40 years, the chief, and, as it were, the regula- 

 tor of astronomers. Piazzi alone was able at last to dispute with 

 him this supremacy; but when we reflect upon the difficult cir- 

 cumstances in which that astronomer has been for so long a time, 

 we shall not be surprised that he published but a small part of his 

 numerous observations. 



Since the estabhshment of the Board of Longitude in 

 France, the observatories of Paris and of Greenwich are directed 

 nearly to the same objects; and, furnished with instruments 

 equally good, they produce annually collections of observations 

 equally precise, which would serve mutually to verify one an- 

 other if there were occasion for that. They serve as a supple- 

 ment to each other, when the clouds which cover one observa- 

 tory do not extend likewise to the other. The communications 

 are continual, and the obligations reciprocal. If our tables are 

 founded in a great measure upon the observations of the English, 

 on the other hand the calculations of the English are founded 

 upon our tables. But the latest tables have been verified by as 

 many French as English observations. 



Dr. Maskelyne no more quitted his observatory. In 17^9 he 

 .remained in it to observe the transit of Venus, though only one 

 phasis was visible at Greenwich ; but he drew up instructions for 

 the astronomers whom Great Britain sent to different countries. 

 He collected their observations, and deduced from them the 

 parallax of the sun, and its distance from the earth. His result 

 was the same as that to which Dusejour came by comparing the 

 totality of the observations of the two transits of 1761 and 1769. 



He always made the most interesting and most difficult obser- 

 vations himself, as those of the moon; and trusted those only 

 to an assistant which were more easy and less essential. He fol- 

 lowed with inflexible rigour the methods established by his cele- 

 brated predecessor Bradley, whom he even surpassed in the 

 exactness of his daily observations. He brought to perfection 

 the method of Flamsteed, to determine at once the right ascen- 

 sions of stars and of the sun. He gave a catalogue of stars, not 

 numerous, but determined with particular care, which has 

 served almost solely during these 30 years for the foundation of 



