Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/121

 dence was on a new iron quadrant, by Graham, of 8-feet radius. His leading object was to bring the lunar tables to the perfection required for gaining the prize offered for the solution of the problem of longitudes, and although in his sixty-fourth year at the time of his appointment, he resumed and carried out the design conceived forty years previously of observing the moon through a complete period of eighteen years. He immediately began to draw up lists of lunar errors, but published nothing; and at a meeting of the Royal Society on 2 March 1727 Newton remarked upon the neglect of the late queen's precept regarding the communication of results, whereupon Halley acquainted the council that he had numerous observations of the moon, but ‘had hitherto kept them in his own custody, that he might have time to finish the theory he designed to build upon them, before others might take the advantage of reaping the benefit of his labours’ (, Memoirs Royal Astron. Society, viii. 188). It is said by Hearne that a quarrel ensued which shortened Newton's life. Four years later Halley announced to the Royal Society that he had made nearly fifteen hundred lunar observations, and was able to predict the place of the ‘sidus contumax’ (as he called it) within two minutes of arc. He added a narrative of his efforts towards the improvement of its theory (Phil. Trans. xxxvii. 185). He published, however, only his observations of a partial solar eclipse on 27 Nov. 1722 (ib. xxxii. 197), of the transit of Mercury on 29 Oct. 1723 (ib. xxxiii. 228), and of an eclipse of the moon on 15 March 1736 (ib. xl. 14).

About September 1729 Queen Caroline visited the Royal Observatory, and finding that Halley had held the commission, she procured for him the pay of a post-captain. His salary as astronomer-royal was 100l. a year, with no allowance for an assistant. Owing to the pressure of official duties he resigned in 1721 the secretaryship to the Royal Society, and declined some years later the post of mathematical preceptor to the Duke of Cumberland. He was elected in 1729 a foreign member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. Until 1737, when his right hand became affected with paralysis, he had never experienced a constitutional ailment, and was accustomed to relieve slight fever on catching cold with doses of quinine in water-gruel, which he called his ‘chocolate.’ Every Thursday regularly he went to London to dine with his friends and attend the meetings of the Royal Society; and he ‘stuck close to his telescope,’ aided only by his friend Gale Morris, F.R.S., as amanuensis, until 31 Dec. 1739. His bodily powers now failed rapidly, although his memory and cheerfulness remained unimpaired. At last, tired of the doctors' cordials, he asked for a glass of wine, drank it, and expired, on 14 Jan. 1741–2, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. He was buried in the churchyard of Lee, near Greenwich, with his wife, who died in 1737. The inscription marking the tomb was placed there in 1742 by the two daughters who survived him. Of these, the elder, Margaret, died unmarried on 13 Oct. 1743; the second, Mrs. Price, lived until 1765. His son, Edmund Halley, a surgeon in the royal navy, died before him, and he lost several children in infancy. His will was proved on 9 Feb. 1741–2, one of the witnesses to it being James Bradley [q. v.]

In person Halley was ‘of a middle stature, inclining to tallness, of a thin habit of body, and a fair complexion,’ and it is added that ‘he always spoke as well as acted with an uncommon degree of sprightliness and vivacity.’ His disposition was ardent, generous, and candid; he was disinterested and upright, genial to his friends, an affectionate husband and father, and was wholly free from rancour or jealousy. He passed a life of almost unprecedented literary and scientific activity without becoming involved in a single controversy, and was rendered socially attractive by the unfailing gaiety which embellished the more recondite qualities of a mind of extraordinary penetration, compass, and power. One of his admirers was Peter the Great, who in 1697 not only consulted him as to his shipbuilding and other projects, but admitted him familiarly to his table. Portraits of Halley were painted by Murray, Phillips, and Kneller, and engravings from each were published. There is no trace in his writings of the sceptical views attributed to him by Whiston (Memoirs, i. 123). Professor Rigaud endeavoured (in his ‘Defence of Halley,’ 1844) to exonerate him wholly from a charge perpetuated by the dedication to him, in the character of an ‘infidel mathematician,’ of Bishop Berkeley's ‘Analyst,’ but he doubtless habitually expressed free opinions. His moral character has been impeached, perhaps on insufficient grounds.

On his appointment as astronomer-royal, Halley withheld, in the hope of improving, the lunar and planetary tables he had printed in 1719 (Phil. Trans. xxxvii. 193); yet they appeared posthumously in 1749, without further alteration than the addition of the places and errors of the moon deduced from observations at Greenwich, 1722–39. An English edition was issued in 1752; they were