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 finishing touch to the hostility between him and Newton, and inspired Flamsteed's resolution of printing his observations according to his own plan and at his own expense. His petition to the queen for the suppression of what he termed a ‘surreptitious’ edition of his works was without effect. The ‘Historia Cœlestis’ appeared in 1712, in one folio volume, made up of two books, the first containing the catalogue and sextant observations; the second, observations made with Sharp's mural arc, 1689–1705. But the catalogue was the avowedly imperfect one deposited with the referees in 1708, and completed, without Flamsteed's concurrence, from such of his observations as could be made available. Halley was said to have boasted, in Child's coffee-house, of his pains in correcting its faults. Flamsteed called him a ‘lazy and malicious thief,’ and declared he had by his meddling ‘very effectually spoiled’ the work. The observations were incompletely and inaccurately given, and Halley's preface was undoubtedly an offensive document.

The energy displayed by Flamsteed during the last seven years of his life, in the midst of growing infirmities, was extraordinary. He was afflicted with a painful disease, prostrated by periodical headaches, and crippled with gout. ‘Though I grow daily feebler,’ he wrote in 1713, ‘yet I have strength enough to carry on my business strenuously.’ He observed diligently till within a few days of his death, while prosecuting his purpose of independent publication in spite of numerous difficulties. Newton's refusal to restore 175 sheets of his quadrant observations put him to an expense of 200l. in having them recopied; and he was compelled in 1716 to resort to legal proceedings for the recovery from him of four quarto volumes of ‘Night Notes’ (original entries of observations), entrusted to him for purposes of comparison in 1705. In the second edition of the ‘Principia’ Newton omitted several passages in which he had in 1687 acknowledged his obligations to his former friend.

The enlarged catalogue was hastily printed before the close of 1712, but only a few copies were allowed to be seen in strict confidence. The death of Queen Anne on 1 Aug. 1714, quickly followed by that of Halifax, Newton's patron, brought a turn in Flamsteed's favour. The new lord chamberlain was his friend, and a memorial to the lords of the treasury procured him possession of the three hundred remaining copies (out of four hundred) of the spurious ‘Historia Cœlestis,’ delivered to him by order of Sir Robert Walpole. Sparing only from each ninety-seven sheets of observations with the sextant, he immediately committed them to the flames, ‘as a sacrifice to heavenly truth,’ and ‘that none might remain to show the ingratitude of two of his countrymen who had used him worse than ever the noble Tycho was used in Denmark.’ The extreme scarcity of the edition thus devastated is attested by the following inscription in a copy presented to the Bodleian Library by Sir Robert Walpole in 1725: ‘Exemplar hoc “Historiæ Cœlestis,” quod in thesauraria regia adservabatur, et cum paucis aliis vitaverat ignem et iram Flamsteedianum, Bibliotheca Bodleiana debet honorabili admodum viro Roberto Walpole, Scaccarii Cancellario,’ &c. Its value is enhanced by a letter from Mrs. Flamsteed pasted into it, requesting its removal as an ‘erroneous abridgment of Mr. Flamsteed's works.’

Taken ill on Sunday, 27 Dec. 1719, Flamsteed expired about 9.30 P.M. on the 31st. He remained sensible to the last, but speech failed, and his last wishes remained unuttered. He was buried in the chancel of the parish church of Burstow, but though funds were, by Mrs. Flamsteed's will, appropriated to the purpose, no monument has ever marked his grave (, Observatory, iv. 234). He married, on 23 Oct. 1692, Margaret, daughter of Mr. Ralph Cooke of London, but had no children. He left about 350l. in ready money, and settled upon his widow 120l. a year in Exchequer and South Sea stock. He made no arrangements for the completion of his great work, of which the first and most of the second volume were printed at his decease. The devotion of his assistant, Joseph Crosthwait, supplied the omission. ‘He has not left me in a capacity to serve him,’ he wrote, ‘notwithstanding he has often told me he would; but this I impute to his not being sensible of his near approach till it was too late; but the love, honour, and esteem I have, and shall always, for his memory and everything that belongs to him, will not permit me to leave Greenwich or London before, I hope, the three volumes are finished’ (, Flamsteed, p. 333). This was accomplished, with Sharp's assistance, in 1725.

Of the three folio volumes constituting the ‘Historia Cœlestis Britannica,’ the first comprised the observations of Gascoigne and Crabtree, 1638–43; those made by Flamsteed at Derby and the Tower, 1668–74, with the sextant observations at Greenwich 1676–89, spared from destruction with the edition of 1712. The second volume contained his observations with the mural arc, 1689–1720. The third opened with a disquisition entitled ‘Prolegomena to the Catalogue,’ on the progress of astronomy from the earliest ages,