works-throws out some unmannerly reflections against Sir Richard, who was at that time in Scotland as one of the commissioners on the forfeited estates. Upon Sir Richard's return to London he dedicated to Mr Congreve, Addison's comedy, called 'The Drummer,' in which he took occasion, very smartly, to retort upon Tickell, and clear himself of the imputation laid to his charge, namely, that of taking to himself the merit of Mr Addison's papers in The Spectator.'

About the year 1713, Tickell published The Prospect of Peace,' addressed to his excellency the lord-privy-seal, which met with so favourable a reception from the public, that six editions were speedily sold. Upon this poem Addison bestowed many encomiums. The Royal Progress,' which Mr Tickell meant as a compliment to George I. on his arrival in the British dominions, is also mentioned in The Spectator' in opposition to such performances as are generally written in a swelling style, and in which the bombast is mistaken for the sublime. His imitation of The Prophecy of Nereus' was written about the year 1715, and was intended as a ridicule upon the earl of Mar's enterprise, which he prophecies will be crushed by the duke of Argyle. The Epistle from a Lady in England to a Gentleman at Avignon,' stands high among party-poems. The great propensity of the Jacobites to place confidence in imaginary means, and to construe all extraordinary appearances into ominous signs of the restoration of their king, is most happily noticed in this poem. Kensington Gardens' is the longest of Tickell's poems. The fiction is framed partly of Grecian deities and partly of Gothic fairies. The versification is harmonious, and the language elegant.

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Tickell's translation of the first book of 'The Iliad' was published much about the same time with Pope's. Steele, in his dedication of The Drummer' to Mr Congreve, gives it as his opinion that Addison was himself the author. Pope also considered Addison as the writer of Tickell's version. These translations, published at the same time, were certainly meant as rivals to one another. We cannot convey a more adequate idea of this than in the words of Pope, in a letter to James Craggs, Esq. dated 15th July, 1715. Sir,-They tell me the busy part of the nation are not more busy about whig and tory than these idle fellows of the feather, about Mr Tickell's and my translation. I, like the tories, have the town in general, that is, the mob, on my side; but it is usual with the smaller party to make up in industry what they want in number, and that is the case with the little senate of Cato. However, if our principles be well considered, I must appear a brave whig, and Mr Tickell a rank tory. I translated Homer for the public in general, he, to gratify the inordinate desires of one man only. We have, it seems, a great Turk in poetry who can never bear a brother on the throne; and has his mutes too, a set of meddlers, winkers, and whisperers, whose business it is to strangle all other offsprings of wit in their birth. The new translator of Homer is the humblest slave he has, that is to say, his first minister: let him receive the honours he gives me, but receive them with fear and trembling: let him be proud of the approbation of his absolute lord; I appeal to the people as my rightful judges and masters; and if they are not inclined to condemn me, I fear no arbitrary high-flying proceeding from the court-faction at Button's. But after all I have said of this great man,

there is no rupture between us; we are each of us so civil and obliging that neither thinks he is obliged; and I, for my part, treat with him as we do with the grand monarch, who has too many great qualities not to be respected, though we know he watches any occasion to oppress us." Pope did not long consider Tickell as the translator of the first book of the Iliad.' " He suspected that version to have been Addison's; and the reasons for his suspicion we shall literally transcribe from Mr Spence's 'Collection.' "There had been a coldness between Mr Addison and me for some time, and we had not been in company together for a good while any where but at Button's coffee-house, where I used to see him almost every day. On his meeting me there one day in par ticular, he took me aside, and said he should be glad to dine with me at such a tavern, if I staid till those people were gone-Budgell and Phillips. We went accordingly, and after dinner Mr Addison said that he had wanted for some time to talk with me; that his friend Tickell had formerly, while at Oxford, translated the first book of the Iliad;' that he designed to print it, and had desired him to look it over; that he must therefore beg that I would not desire him to look over my first book, because if he did it would have the air of doubledealing. I assured him that I did not at all take it ill of Mr Tickell that he was going to publish his translation; that he certainly had a much right to translate any author as myself, and that publishing both was entering on a fair stage. I then added that I would not desire him to look over my first book of the Iliad,' because he had looked over Mr Tickell's, but could wish to have the benefit of his observations on my second, which I had then finished, and which Mr Tickell had not touched upon. Accordingly I sent him the second book next morning, and Mr Addison a few days afterwards returned it with very high com mendations. Soon after it was generally know that Mr Tickell was publishing the first book of the Iliad,' I met Dr Young in the street and upon our falling into that subject the Doctor expressed a great of surprise at Tickell's having had such a translation so long by him He said that it was inconceivable to him, and that there must be some mistake in the matter; that each used to communicate to the other whatever verses they wrote, even to the least things; that Ticke could not have been busied in so long a work there without his knowing something of the matter; and that he had never heard a single word of it till on this occasion. This surprise of Dr Young, together with what Steele has said against Tickell in relation to this affair. make it highly probable that there was some underhand-dealing in that business; and indeed Tickell himself, who is a very fair worthy man, has since in a manner as good as owned it to me-(Mr Pope.)When it was introduced into a conversation between Mr Tickell and Mr Pope by a third person, Tickell did not deny it, which, consider ing his honour and zeal for his departed friend, was the same as owning it." Upon these suspicions Pope always, in his Art of Sinking,' quotes this book as the work of Addison.

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In June, 1724, Mr Tickell was appointed secretary to the lordsjustices of Ireland, a place of great honour, and which he held till his death, which happened at Bath, on the 23d of April, 1740.

Edmund Halley.

BORN A. D. 1656.-died a. D. 1742.

THIS distinguished astronomer and mathematician was born in the village or hamlet of Huggerstone, in the neighbourhood of London, in the year 1656. His father was a soap-manufacturer, and had amassed a large fortune in that business. His son Edmund early displayed very promising abilities, which induced the family to think he might be fitted for some better occupation than that of a soap-boiler. He was therefore placed at a suitable age in St Paul's school, where the learned Dr Thomas Gale was head-master. Here he made rapid progress in classical attainments, and at the age of fifteen became captain of the school. His attainments were even then not limited to the classics. His taste and inclinations seemed to incline to mathematics, in which, before the age of sixteen, he had made very respectable progress. So early as his seventeenth year he had observed the variations of the magnetic needle, and had acquired considerable knowledge of astronomy. In the year 1673, he entered as a commoner of the Queen's college, Oxford, where he applied with extraordinary diligence to mathematics and astronomy. His father, though no philosopher, had acuteness enough to perceive the bent of his son's mind, and was willing to afford him every encouragement in its cultivation. No expense was spared in supplying him with books and instruments of all kinds. Such was the early and rapid progress of young Halley, that at the age of nineteen he communicat to the world The direct and geometrical Method of finding th Aphelia and Eccentricity of the Planets,' a desideratum which had been long sought by astronomers. Soon after he made other improvements in the science of astronomy; and in June, 1675, determined the motion of the sun on its own axis by discovering a spot on its surface, a fact which was not previously ascertained. The same year he made another important discovery; the occultation of Mars by the moon, which enabled him to determine the longitude of the Cape of Good Hope in opposition to the theory of the French philosophers. While he remained at Oxford, he made several other important and useful discoveries, particularly the motions of Saturn and Jupiter, and the method of constructing eclipses of the sun, &c. He proceeded with great avidity and eminent success to prosecute his researches, and formed the design of completing the scheme of the whole heavens, by the addition of those stars which lie too near the south pole to be observed by the astronomer in these northern parts of the world. He announced his intention to the secretary of state, Sir Joseph Williamson, and other official persons. He was accordingly supplied with a letter from his majesty, Charles II. to the East India company, who engaged to convey him to the island of St Helena, and supply him with every accommodation necessary for his purpose. At the age of twenty he embarked upon this undertaking; and, in three months, was pursuing his observations at the appointed spot. In two years he returned home, having completed a planisphere, in which, with the utmost accuracy, he had laid down the exact places of all the stars near

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the south pole. His labours were presented to the king, who was please to express his high gratification, and to grant him a letter of mandamu to the university of Oxford for the degree of M. A. The same year a was elected fellow of the Royal society. In the year 1679, Mr Hailey gave his catalogue to the world, and the same year was chosen by t Royal society to go to Dantzic, to settle a dispute between M Hevelius and Mr Hook, respecting the accuracy of some astronomia observations. After his return to London he resolved upon what wa termed the grand tour, in company with his friend Mr Nelson. the road between Calais and Paris, Mr Halley made the discovery the comet of that year, as it appeared the second time, on its ret from the sun. He was enabled to complete his observations upon t from the observatory at Paris. One principal object of this tour we to establish a friendly correspondence between the philosophers a Greenwich and of France and other places, as well as to improve himself by intercourse with Cassini and other eminent astronomes From France he went into Italy, and spent there nearly the whole of t year 1681. He then returned to England, and, in 1682, married a daughter of Mr Tooke, auditor of the exchequer. dence at Islington, and continued to pursue his studies with the utmos He fixed his res diligence. Soon after he published his Theory of the Variations of the Compass; and, about the same time, entered upon a new method of determining longitudes by the moon's motion. however, at this period somewhat interrupted by the death of his His studies were, father, who had fallen into indigent circumstances, partly through losses sustained in the fire of London, and partly through an imprudent second marriage. His own family also rapidly increased, which tended. in some degree, to embarrass his studies. However, he rose above ali these difficulties, and continued his important pursuits with the utmost zeal and diligence. In or about 1684, he first obtained the acquaintance of Newton, at Cambridge, whither he went to consult him respecting some difficulties in his calculations, which he could find no mathe maticians to assist him in. It will be readily supposed the two philo sophers were mutually delighted. Newton possessed of so rich a fund of philosophy, prevailed upon him It is said that Halley, finding to give it to the world, and that, in some measure, the publication of the Principia' is to be traced to this interview. That immortal work appeared soon after, and Mr Halley, to whom Newton intrusted the editing of it, prefixed a discourse of his own and some elegant Latin verses. About a year before the appearance of the Principia,' Halley had been appointed assistant-secretary to the Royal society. After this appointment he read several valuable papers, and published some important works on various points of astronomy, all of a useful practical nature, and tending greatly to the advancement of science. the course of ten years he produced about thirty dissertations on a great variety of subjects; natural philosophy, antiquities, philology, and criticism. In 1691 he applied for the vacant Savilian professorship of astronomy at Oxford, but lost it on account of his infidelity;-for, strange as it may seem, this acute and able philosopher was a disbeliever and even a banterer of religion. He was, however, open and frank in his acknowledgment of infidelity, and not like many philosophers who profess friendship for religion, only

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the more effectually to betray and wound it. Mr Halley continued in his secretaryship to the Royal society only seven years. In 1692 he resigned it for the office of comptroller of the mint at Chester, which was one of the five different mints appointed for the recoinage of the silver specie. He remained in this situation, residing at Chester, two years; but continued his philosophical studies, and communicated their results regularly to the Royal society. In 1698 he procured a vessel from King William, and set out to make observations on the needle, and to determine latitudes and longitudes for our American settlements; but was obliged to return home on account of the sickness and untractableness of his men. In a few months he set sail with two ships under his command, and traversed the vast Atlantic ocean from one hemisphere to the other, as far as the southern ice would allow. He returned in the year 1700, and published a chart showing at one view all the variations of the compass in those seas known to British navigators. Soon after, he received a commission to observe the course of the tides in the British channel, and to lay down the latitudes and longitudes of all the head lands. This task he executed with eminent ability and despatch. He was subsequently employed by the emperor of Germany in some surveys for ports, and received marks of high respect from several foreign courts. In 1703 he returned to England, and was chosen, the same year, to the office of Savilian professor of geometry in Oxford. There he was created doctor of laws. Speedily he entered upon a new work. He undertook to translate, out of the Arabic, 'Apollonius de Sectione Ratione.' This work he undertook when he was wholly unacquainted with Arabic. In 1706 the whole was published by him at Oxford, notwithstanding the imperfections and mutilations of the manuscript which he had to decypher and translate. This was followed by several other learned works on mathematics. In 1713 he was appointed secretary to the Royal society, and in 1719 astronomer royal at Greenwich. Two years after, he gave up his secretaryship, that he might appropriate his whole time to the studies suited to his new office, particularly to the completion of his theory respecting the moon's motion. He was now in his sixty-fourth year, yet he performed all the business of the observatory himself, without an assistant, for the space of eighteen years. In 1729 he was admitted a member of the academy of sciences at Paris. He continued his laborious pursuits almost without interruption, till the year 1737, when a paralytic affection seized his right hand. From this period he gradually sunk under the influence of disease, though for several years he continued to enjoy the society of his friends, and usually came to London every Thursday, prior to the assembling of the Royal society, to meet the club, known yet by the name of Dr Halley's club. He died in his chair without a groan, January 14th, 1741-2, in his eighty-sixth year. Dr Halley was a thin and rather tall man, of a lively disposition, and of a warm, though not hot or violent temper. He is said to have preserved much gaiety and good humour throughout life, and to have been exceedingly warm and sincere in his friendships. He preserved his faculties to the last, though these were gilded by none of those rays, falling from another world, which have gilded the last hours of philosophers not less eminent than Halley, who thought it no degradation to profess their faith in brighter revelations than any philosophy had ever