come.

"I hope to be excused," he says, "for not informing other of my friends of the expected phenomenon, but most of them care little for trifles of this kind, preferring rather their hawks and their hounds, to say no worse; and although England is not without votaries of astronomy, with some of whom I am acquainted, I was unable to convey to them the agreeable tidings, having myself had so little notice."

The 24th of November fell on a Sunday. The unassisted curate was compelled more than once, to leave his telescope for the village congregation. These interruptions, especially the second one, must have have caused him an anxiety almost unparalelled he : was forced to incur the terrible risk of losing the transit he had predicted in opposition to the universally received opinion, and which would not occur again during that century: But we hear no complaint. He thus tells the story of that important day:

"I watched carefully on the 24th from sunrise to nine o'clock and from a little before ten until noon, and at one in the afternoon, being called away in the intervals, by business of the highest importance which I could not with propriety neglect for these ornamental pursuits.* About fifteen minutes past three in the afternoon, when I was again at liberty to continue my labours, the clouds, as by divine interposition, were entirely dispersed, and I was once more invited to the grateful task of repeating my observations. I then beheld a most agreeable spectacle the object of my sanguine wishes a spot of unusual magnitude, and of perfectly circular shape, which had already fully entered upon the

William Crabtree had, meantime, carefully watched at Broughton, and although at first despairing of being able to make an observation because the heavens were obscured during the greater part of the day with thick clouds, he had a little before sunset obtained a view of the sun, which suddenly burst forth in all its glory, when he immediately began to observe it, and was gratified by beholding what Horrocks had predicted-Venus upon the sun's disc ; but his joy was too great; he became almost insensible;-and here let us listen to the cordial defence of his friend who anxiously shields him from reproach. 'Rapt in contemplation," Horrocks writes, "he stood for some time motionless, scarcely trusting his own senses through excess of joy; for we astronomers have, as it were, a womanish disposition, and are overjoyed with trifles and such small matters as scarcely make an impression on others; a susceptibility which those who will may deride with impunity, even in my own presence, and, if it gratify them, I too will join in the merriment. One thing I request : let no severe Cato be seriously offended with our follies; for, to speak poetically, what young man on earth would not, like ourselves, fondly admire Venus in conjunction with the Sun, pulchritudinem divitiis conjunctam?" In a little while the clouds again obscured the face of the sun, so that he could observe

nothing more than that Venus was certainly on the disc at the time. The overwhelming rapture of Crab-tree serves to bring out into relief the admirable self-command of Horrocks during the whole of that day of agitation, interruption, and suspense. In speaking of a sketch of the planet as it appeared on the sun's disc taken from memory by Crabtree, as soon as he recovered his senses, Horrocks says he found it to "differ little or nothing from his own observation; nor indeed," he adds, "did he err more than Apelles himself might have done in making so rapid a sketch."

And now, having seen the transit, Horrocks resolved to write a full account of what he had beheld; but his "daily harassing duties" stood much in the way of his beginning this work: these duties were perhaps those connected with teaching; but we can only conjecture, and glean what little we can, out of his own treatise Venus in Sole visa from Whatton's translation of which we have so largely quoted.

Not long after this eventful Sunday, Jeremiah Horrocks left Hoole to visit his native village, where he devoted himself for a time, to the composition of his Latin treatise, Venus in Sole visa, which he did not live to see in print; but he was to the last full of hopeful plans concerning its publication, and wrote often to Crabtree on the subject, asking his advice and recommendation to a publisher. He wrote on other astronomical subjects, besides the transit of Venus, such as, A Defence of Kepler; A Disputation on the Fixed Stars; On the Obliquity of the Zodiac; Tycho Brahe, &c.

He was strikingly serious, earnest and conscientious in all his ways, which in one so young was certainly very remarkable. When about to begin the correction of

Kepler's tables, he pauses before plunging into the difficult task he had taken upon himself, and thus calls to mind his "great taskmaster."

"And may He who is the great and good God of astronomy, and the conservator of all useful arts, bless my unworthy efforts for His mercy's sake, and cause them to redound to the eternal glory of His name, and the advantage of mankind." Again, when resolving not to despair of further success in an astronomical investigation of considerable difficulty, he says: "for I have been blessed by God's grace with such success that I have already somewhat to rejoice over."

This young astronomer saw spiritual truths written, or rather "shadowed out," in the laws of nature. "Shall we think " he writes, "that He who was contented to shadow out these mysteries with the poor blood of bulls and goats, will disdain to have them typified in the more glorious bodies of the stars and motions of the heavens? For my part, I must ever think that God created all other things, as well as man, in his own image, and that the nature of all things is one, as God is one, and therefore an harmonical agreeing of the causes of all things, if demonstrated, were the quintessence of all most truly natural philosophy."

Horrocks had long wished to visit his friend that they might talk over many things together; and as soon as he felt himself at liberty, resting for awhile in his native village, he thought of planning this meeting. On July 18th, 1640, he writes to Crabtree : "I have just returned to Toxteth. I will shortly answer your letter, either in person, or by writing to you again." On July 30th. "I shall soon be with you; meanwhile, these few words, &c."

It appears that the desired meeting was more difficult to manage

than had at first appeared; for October 3rd, 1640, arrived without their having seen each other, and Horrocks, still at Toxteth, writes, "At last, God willing, I do indeed intend to visit you very soon now, but I am not yet able to fix the day on account of the unsettled state of my affairs; besides, I should prefer finishing my book on Venus seen in the sun's disc, before I come to you."

Crabtree, meantime, rejoicing in the certain hope of seeing his face before long, wrote thus to Gascoigne, speaking of the transit :- "The clouds deprived me of part of the observation; but my friend, Mr. Jeremiah Horrox, living near Preston, observed it clearly from the time of its coming into the sun till the sun's setting; and both our observations agreed, both in the time and diameter, most precisely. If I can, I will bring him along with Mr. Townley and myself to see Yorkshire, and you."

On the 16th of December Horrocks wrote to Crabtree arranging to travel to him on the 4th of January. "I shall be with you," he said, "if nothing unforeseen should occur." We learn from an inscription on the back of the last-mentioned letter that something "unforeseen did occur.'

There was a silence concerning Horrocks for long after bis early and sudden death; but in 1662 some movement was made towards the carrying out of one of the last wishes of his heart-the publication of his works. In that year a copy of the Venus in Sole visa came into the hands of Huygens, the Dutch astronomer, who entrusted it to Hevelius, and it was afterwards published in Germany along with a treatise on the "Transit of Mercury," by the last-named astronomer. Eventually, as we have said, Dr. Wallis, at the request of the Royal

Society, published Horrocks' "Opera Posthuma," from which we have freely qucted.

It does not lie within the purpose of the present article to enlarge on the value of Horrocks' scientific works, which our readers will find constantly alluded to in many of the writings from which we have gleaned. The name of the youthful astronomer of Lancashire constantly occurs in Professor Rigaud's book, "Letters of the Scientific Men of the Seventeenth Century," where he is often mentioned as that "excellent youth Horrocks." Sir Isaac Newton writes, "I must join with Mr. Gregory in admiring Horrox;" and he tells how he rejoices at the prospect of the publication of Horrocks' writings, speaking of "that excellent astronomer

him as Horrox."

In a review of Rigaud's "His. torical Essay on the first publication of Newton's 'Principia,' these words occur in connection with some astronomical difficulties difficulties on which Horrocks successfully tried his strength: The first to clear up these difficulties by any simple theory was the poor curate of Hoole, who suggested that the moon moved in an ellipse, with a varying eccentricity, and whose apsides were perpetually changing. · He explained this theory in letters. to Crabtree in September and December, 1638, a view which all subsequent discoveries have contributed to verify and extend." Again—“To Horrox's other investigations, we shall have to refer in the sequel. They are all stamped. with the clear indications of a genius of the highest order."

It seems that Newton held Horrocks in the very highest estimation, although on one occasion, as Flamstead remarks, he has inadvertently ascribed to Halley much of what was due to Horrocks.

Newton thus mentions our hero * (as we read in p. 85 of Whatton's "Memoir ") "There are many inequalities in the moon's motion not yet noticed by astronomers. They are all deducible from our principles, and are known to have a real existence in the heavens. This may be seen in the hypothesis of Horrox, which is the most ingenious, and, if I do not deceive myself,

the most accurate of all"-"in Horroccii Hypothesi illâ ingemosissimâ et in fallor omnium accuratissimi ordere licet.”

In conclusion, we will call to mind the words of the late Professor de Morgan, who said, No monument is needed for the name of Horrox ; for wherever Newton's Principia' is known, there is his name known also." M. G. M.

6

of

NOTWITHSTANDING the bounding and full-blooded scientific vigour modern times, when the much that has been realized only serves to raise hopes for the indefinitely more which is to crown the investigations of the future, it is not without significance to remark upon the growing and spreading interest in the past. The death of all anterior or ancestral ages becomes a vivifying influence to the men of the present, whose daily life partakes so much of the historic and fondly retrospective. Omens of what is about to happen are taken from the fulfilled auguries of bygone times; and from completed cycles are fashioned prophetically the models to which those at present in progress, or hereafter to be initiated, will adapt themselves. The ambages, no less than the highways of antiquity, are being explored with unprecedented and unflagging ardour; and if one royally-disposed

The man

Kouyunjik and Nimroud. who has just occasioned so exquisite a thrill to scholars is described as having won his present position under circumstances the surmounting of which is always interesting in a country where pluck and energy are admired, and where men have a habit of "strongly saying their say." Dr. Schliemann appears to have begun life as a grocer's shop-boy, who, with an annual income of about 30%., spent half of it on the improvement of his mind; to have bribed a bibulous and needy scholar with schnaps, to delight his ears with the stately rhythm of the Iliad, not a word of which did he at that time understand. Ultimately he was wont, for mercantile purposes, to master a language in a fortnight; and, with this singular power, combined with industry, self-denial, thrift, and genius, built up a noble fortune, that he might spend it on such enterprises as his recent excavations in the Troad.

"In the course of these excavations," says Dr. Schliemann, "in April, 1873, on the Trojan Wall, and in the immediate neighbourhood of Priam's house, I fell on a great copper object of remarkable form, which attracted my attention all the more because I thought I saw gold behind it. On this copper object rested a thick crust of red ashes and calcined ruins, on which again weighed a wall nearly six feet thick and eighteen feet high, built of great stones and earth, and which must have belonged to the period immediately after the destruction of Troy. In order to save the treasure from the greed of my workmen, and to secure it for science, it was necessary to use the very greatest haste, and so, though it was not yet breakfast time, I had paidos,' or 'resting time' called out at once. While my workmen were eating and resting, I cut out the treasure with a great knife, not without the greatest effort, and the most terrible risk of my life; for the great wall of the old fortress which I had to undermine threatened every moment to fall down upon me. But the sight of so many objects, of which each alone is of

inestimable worth for science, made me foolhardy, and I thought of no danger. The carrying off of the treasure, however, would have been impossible without the help of my dear wife, who stood by ready to pack up the objects, as I cut them out, in her shawl, and to take them away."

The treasure so found, is on the whole so various and so precious as to have led Schliemann to call it the Schatz, or Treasure, of Priam; and whether this be so or not, his discoveries have been altogether so important as to justify a remark recently made in the course of a discussion at the Royal Society of Antiquaries, that no revelation of equal archæological interest had been made since the opening of the Assyrian mounds.

But it is the special glory of the results of the investigations alluded to in the last few words, that,

whereas Dr. Schliemann's discoveries can only directly enlighten, or obscure, the "Iliad," the Bible of the ancient Hellenic world—they are being constantly pressed into the service of Christian biblical scholarship, and especially in the sphere of chronology, the systems. of which have been as various as they have been unsatisfactory or unconvincing. This is a circumstance which can scarcely be regarded as unnatural, when it is remembered that the three biblical texts of principal note give different accounts of the first ages of the world. The Hebrew text reckons about four thousand years from Adam to Christ, and to the Flood sixteen hundred and fifty-six years; the Samaritan text makes this interval longer, and reckons from Adam to the Flood only thirteen hundred and seven years; whilst the Septuagint removes the Creation of the World to six thousand years before Christ. The interval between the Creation and the Flood, according to Eusebius and the Sep