Correspondence and papers of Edmond Halley : preceded by an unpublished memoir of his life by one of his contemporaries and the 'Éloge' / by D'Ortous de Mairan; arranged and edited by Eugene Fairfield MacPike.

  • Edmond Halley
Date:
[1937]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Correspondence and papers of Edmond Halley : preceded by an unpublished memoir of his life by one of his contemporaries and the 'Éloge' / by D'Ortous de Mairan; arranged and edited by Eugene Fairfield MacPike. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ‘No biographer has yet appeared to write the life of this great man, nor does any public monument yet adequately represent the national estimation which is so richly deserved by the second most illustrious of Anglo-Saxon philosophers.’1 According to Prof. S. P. Rigaud2 (obiit 1839), the original MS. Memoir of Halley, now first published herein, ‘was found in the Bodleian Library at Oxford; it is a small quarto and consists of twenty leaves. The author is not known, but it appears that he was of Cambridge University, was acquainted with Halley and Dr. Sykes, the oriental¬ ist, and wrote before Halley’s manuscript observations were out of the hands of his executors’.3 The authorship of this MS. Memoir was, at one time, ascribed to Israel Lyons, jun. (1739—75)5 of Cambridge, although evidently of an earlier date.4 A transcript5 made by Rigaud is in the Bodleian Library, where, also, is a manuscript note6 by him, as follows : ‘In the “Biographia Britannica” reference is made to some manuscript* memoirs communicated by Halley’s son-in-law Mr. Price. Vol. iv, p. 2494, 1757-’7 ‘* These are not the account of a [sic] which a copy is contained in this book, p. 2-19.8 For among other things, mention is made at the end of note [o], p. 2502, of Halley losing a favourite boy at sea to which no allusion is made in this narrative.’9 Rigaud, after satisfying himself that the MS. Memoir of Halley found in the Bodleian Library was not identical with the memoirs by Henry Price, appears not to have made any further effort to discover the true authorship. The manuscript was transferred from the Bodleian Library to that of the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, where it is preserved now (1932). The text, as presented in the pages following, is after a photostat made directly from that original. The wording of several portions of this memoir is closely similar to that of corresponding parts of Mairan’s ‘Éloge de M. Halley'.10 1 Nature, vol. xxi, p. 303, London, 1880. 2 ‘Some Particulars of the Life of Dr. Halley; communicated by Professor Rigaud, through Mr. Baily’ (Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Dec. 12, 1834, vol. iii, p. 67). 3 Cf. Baily, Francis: Account of Flamsteed (1835): Supplement (1837), p. 731, where reference is made to the purchase of Halley’s manuscript observations by the British Government. 4 See Rigaud, S. P.: Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society (1836), vol. ix, p. 206, note. 5 MS. Rigaud 7, ff. 2-19, Bodleian Library, Oxford. 6 MS. Rigaud 7, f. 50. 7 Biographia Britannica, vol. iv, p. 2494, side-note (b), London, 1757. 8 MS. Rigaud, 7, f. 2-19. 9 See p. 8, notes (5 and 6). 10 Mairan, J. J. d’Ortous de: ‘Éloge de M. Halley’, in Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des
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