Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse; Anterior to His Settlemen… — Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse by William Barton

Memoirs of the Life of David Rittenhouse; Anterior to His Settlement in Philadelphia

The paternal ancestors of David Rittenhouse were early and long seated at Arnheim, a fortified city on the Rhine, and capital of the district of Velewe or Veluive, sometimes called the Velau, in the Batavian province of Guelderland;55 where, it is said, they conducted manufactories of paper,56 during the course of some generations. The orthography of the name was formerly Rittinghuysen, as the writer of these memoirs was informed by an European member of this family.57 But it is net improbable, that, in more strict conformity to the idiom of its Saxo-Germanic original, the name was spelt Ritterhuysen 58—or, perhaps, Ritterhausen; which signifies, in our language, Knights’ Houses: a conjecture that seems to be somewhat corroborated by the chivalrous emblems alluding to this name, belonging to the family, and which have been already noticed.

It has been asserted, that the first of the Rittenhouses who migrated to America, was named William; and that he went from Guelderland to the (now) state of New-York, while it was yet a Dutch colony. This William was also said to have left at Arnheim a brother, Nicholas, who continued to carry on the paper-making business in that city.59 But, in a genealogical account of the family in the possession of the Memorialist, Garrett (or Gerard) and Nicholas Rittenhouse are stated to have arrived at New-York, from Holland, so late as the year 1690: it likewise states, that Nicholas there married Wilhelmina Dewees, a sister of William Dewees, who came thither about the same time; and that, soon afterwards, they all removed to the neighbourhood of Germantown in Pennsylvania; where Nicholas established the first paper-mill ever erected in America.60 It is believed, however, that Garrett and Nicholas Rittenhouse were sons of William; who is supposed to have arrived in some part of the original territories of New-York, prior to the year 1674;61 that the Nicholas left in Arnheim, was his brother; and that his sons Garrett and Nicholas, who are stated to have been the first of the family that settled in New-York, in 1690 (from whence they removed, “soon afterwards,” into Pennsylvania,) did, in fact, transfer themselves into this latter province, in that year.—Garrett left children; some of whose descendants are resident in Pennsylvania, and others in New-Jersey.

Nicholas Rittenhouse, the grandfather of our Philosopher, died about the year 1730; leaving three sons, William, Henry, and Matthias; and four daughters, Psyche, Mary, Catharine, and Susanna. Of these daughters, Psyche intermarried with John Gorgas, from whom are descended the Gorgas’s of Cresham and Cocolico; Mary, with John Johnson, the father of Casper, John, Nicholas, William, and Benjamin Johnson, some of whom are now (or were lately) living, in the neighbourhood of Germantown; Catharine, with Jacob Engle, in the same vicinity; and Susanna, with Henry Heiley of Goshehoppen.

William Rittenhouse, the eldest brother of our Philosopher’s father, died at the paper-mills, near Germantown. He left several children, one of whom did lately, and perhaps yet does, carry on those works.—Henry and Matthias removed to the townships of Worcester and Norriton, about the year 1732 or 1733; where both lived to be upwards of seventy years of age.

The old American stock of the Rittenhouses were Anabaptists,62 and persons of very considerable note in that religious society. Probably, therefore, they were induced to establish their residence in Pennsylvania, towards the close of the seventeenth century, by the tolerating principles held forth by William Penn,63 in respect to religious 64 concerns; the justness of the tenure by which he became proprietor of the soil;65 and the excellence of the political regulations established by that great legislator, for the civil government of his newly-acquired domains.

Matthias, the youngest son of Nicholas Rittenhouse, by Wilhelmina Dewees his wife, was born at the paper-mills belonging to his family, near Germantown,66 in the county of Philadelphia and about eight miles from the capital of Pennsylvania, in the year 1703. Having abandoned the occupation of a paper-maker, when about twenty-nine years of age, and two years after his father’s death, he then commenced the business of a farmer, on a piece of land he had purchased in the township of Norriton,67 about twenty miles from the city of Philadelphia; his brother Henry establishing himself in the same manner, in the adjoining township of Worcester. In October, 1727,—about three years prior to Matthias’s removal from the vicinity of Germantown,—he had become a married man. His wife was Elizabeth William (or Williams) who was born in 1704, and was daughter of Evan William, a native of Wales. Her father, a farmer, dying while she was a child, she was placed under the charge of an elderly English (or, more probably, Welsh) gentleman, in the neighbourhood, of the name of Richard Jones; a relation of her family. That truly respectable woman possessed a cheerful temper, with a mind uncommonly vigorous and comprehensive: but her education was much neglected, as is too often the fate of orphan children. Yet, perhaps, no censure ought justly to be imputable to Mr. Jones, in this case; because there were very few schools of any kind, in country situations, at that early day.68

The extraordinary natural understanding of this person, so very nearly related as she was to the subject of these memoirs, seemed to the writer to merit particular notice; and the more especially, for a reason which shall be hereafter mentioned.

By this wife, Matthias Rittenhouse had four sons and six daughters;69 three of whom died in their minority. The three eldest of the children were born at the place of their father’s nativity; the others, at Norriton. Of the former number was David, the eldest son, the subject of these memoirs.—He was born on the 8th day of April, 1732.70

This son was an infant, when his family removed to Norriton and engaged in the business of farming; and his father appears, early, to have designed him for this most useful and very respectable employment. Accordingly, as soon as the boy arrived at a sufficient age to assist in conducting the affairs of the farm, he was occupied as an husbandman. This kind of occupation seems to have commenced at a very early period of his life; for it is ascertained, that, about the fourteenth year of his age, he was actually employed in ploughing his father’s fields.71

At that period of our future Philosopher’s life, early as it was, his uncultivated mind, naturally teeming with the most prolific germs of yet unexpanded science, began to unfold those buds of genius, which soon after attained that wonderful luxuriance of growth by which the usefulness and splendour of his talents became eminently conspicuous. His brother Benjamin relates,72 that, while David was thus employed at the plough, from the age of fourteen years and for some time after, he (this informant,) then a young boy, was frequently sent to call him to his meals; at which times he repeatedly observed, that not only the fences at the head of many of the furrows, but even his plough and its handles, were covered over with chalked numerical figures, &c.73—Hence it is evident, that the exuberance of a sublime native genius and of almost unbounded intellectual powers, unaided by any artificial means of excitement, were enabled, by dint of their own energy, to burst through those restraints which the corporeal employments of his youth necessarily imposed upon them.

During that portion of his life in which this youthful philosopher pursued the ordinary occupations of a husbandman, which continued until about the eighteenth year of his age, as well as in his earlier youth, he appeared to have inherited from healthful parents a sound constitution, and to have enjoyed good health.

It was at this period, or rather about the seventeenth year of his age, that he made a wooden clock, of very ingenious workmanship: and soon after, he constructed one of the same materials that compose the common four-and-twenty hour clock, and upon the same principles. But he had exhibited much earlier proofs of his mechanical genius, by making, when only seven or eight years old, a complete water-mill in miniature.

Mr. Rittenhouse’s father was a very respectable man: he possessed a good understanding, united to a most benevolent heart and great simplicity of manners. The writer long knew him; and, from his early acquaintance with the character, the appearance, and the habits of this worthy sire of an illustrious son, he had long supposed him to have been inclined to the religious principles of the society called Friends, although he had been bred a Baptist:—but a circumstance which shall be noticed hereafter, will evince the liberality of this good man’s opinions, in the all-important concern of religion. Yet, with truly estimable qualities, both of the head and heart, old Mr. Rittenhouse had no claims to what is termed genius; and therefore did not, probably, duly appreciate the early specimens of that talent, which appeared so conspicuous in his son David. Hence, he was for some time opposed to the young man’s earnest desire to renounce agricultural employments; for the purpose of devoting himself, altogether, to philosophical pursuits, in connexion with some such mechanical profession as might best comport with useful objects of natural philosophy, and be most likely, at the same time, to afford him the means of a comfortable subsistence. At length, however, the father yielded his own inclinations, in order to gratify what was manifestly the irresistible impulse of his son’s genius: he supplied him with money to purchase, in Philadelphia, such tools as were more immediately necessary for commencing the clock-making business, which the son then adopted as his profession.

About the same time, young Mr. Rittenhouse erected on the side of a public road, and on his father’s land in the township of Norriton, a small but commodious work-shop; and, after having made many implements of the trade with his own hands, to supply the deficiency of many such as were wanting in his purchased stock, he set out in good earnest as a clock and mathematical instrument maker.

From the age of eighteen or nineteen to twenty-five, Mr. Rittenhouse applied himself unremittingly, both to his trade and his studies. Employed throughout the day in his attention to the former, he devoted much of his nights to the latter. Indeed he deprived himself of the necessary hours of rest; for it was his almost invariable practice to sit up, at his books, until midnight, sometimes much later.

It was in this interval and by these means, that our young philosopher impaired his constitution, and contracted a pain in his breast; or rather, as he himself described that malady to the writer, “a constant heat in the pit of the stomach, affecting a space not exceeding the size of half a guinea, attended at times with much pain;” a sensation from which he was never exempt, during the remainder of his life. About this time, he retired from all business, and passed several weeks at the Yellow Springs, distant but a few miles from his place of residence. He there bathed and drank the waters; and from the use of this chalybeate, he appeared to have derived some benefit to his general health, though it afforded little alleviation of the pain in his breast.

A due regard to the sacredness of historic truth demands, that some circumstances which occurred while Mr. Rittenhouse was yet a youth, and one which it is believed had a very considerable influence on his subsequent pursuits and reputation, should now be made known. Because the writer of these memoirs conceives he ought not to be restrained, by motives which would appear to him to arise from a mistaken delicacy, from introducing into his work such notices of his own father, long since deceased, as do justice to his memory; while they also serve to elucidate the biographical history of Mr. Rittenhouse.

In the year 1751, when David Rittenhouse was about nineteen years of age, Thomas Barton, who was two years elder than David, opened a school in the neighbourhood of Mr. Matthias Rittenhouse. It was while Mr. Barton continued in that place, supposed to have been about a year and a half, that he became acquainted with the Rittenhouse Family; an acquaintance which soon ripened into a warm friendship for young Mr. Rittenhouse, and a more tender attachment to his sister, Esther.

Two years afterwards (in 1753), the personal attractions and fine understanding of the sister rendered her the wife of Mr. Barton; who, for some time before, had officiated as one of the tutors in the then recently-established Academy, afterwards College, of Philadelphia; now the University of Pennsylvania. In this station, he continued until the autumn of 1754; when he embarked for England, for the purpose of receiving episcopal ordination in the church, and returned to Pennsylvania in the early part of the following year.

The very intimate connexion thus formed between Mr. Barton and a sister of Mr. Rittenhouse (who was two years elder than this brother), strengthened the bands of friendship which had so early united these young men: a friendship affectionate and sincere, and one which never ceased until Mr. Barton’s death, nearly thirty years afterwards; notwithstanding some difference of political opinions had arisen between these brothers-in-law, in the latter part of that period, in consequence of the declaration of the American independence.

Mr. Barton was a native of Ireland, descended from an English family; of which, either two or three brothers settled in that kingdom, during the disastrous times in the interregnum of Charles I. Having obtained very considerable grants of land in Ireland, this family possessed ample estates in their then adopted country. Hence, flattering prospects of an establishment there, in respect to fortune, were held out to their descendants. Through one of those untoward circumstances, however, by means of which the most unexpected revolutions in the affairs of families and individuals have been sometimes produced, the expectations of an independent patrimony which our Mr. Barton’s father had entertained, were speedily dissipated. Nevertheless, this gentleman, who was the eldest son of his family, was instructed in the rudiments of a classical education in the vicinity of his family residence in the county of Monaghan, under the direction of the Rev. Mr. Folds, a respectable English clergyman; and at a suitable age, he was sent to the university of Dublin, where he finished his academical education. Entirely destitute of fortune, but possessing a strong intellect, stored with useful and ornamental learning as well as an ardent and enterprizing spirit, this young adventurer arrived in Philadelphia soon after he had completed his scholastic studies.

The writer’s principal design, in presenting to the public view these slight sketches of the early history of the late Rev. Mr. Barton, shall be now explained.

When Mr. Rittenhouse’s father established his residence at Norriton, and during the minority of the son, there were no schools in the vicinity at which any thing more was taught, than reading and writing in the English language and the simplest rules of arithmetic. Young Mr. Rittenhouse’s school-education, in his early youth, was therefore necessarily bounded by these scanty limits of accessible instruction: He was, in truth, taught nothing beyond these very circumscribed bounds of literary knowledge, prior to the nineteenth year of his age; though it is certain, that some years before that period of his life, he began to be known—at least in his own neighbourhood—as a mathematician and astronomer, in consequence of his cultivation of the transcendent genius with which heaven had endued him.

Under such circumstances as these, the familiar intercourse between David Rittenhouse and his young friend Barton, which commenced when the age of the former did not exceed nineteen years, could not fail to prove highly advantageous to the mental improvement of both. The one possessed a sublime native genius; which, however, was yet but very imperfectly cultivated, for want of the indispensable means of extending the bounds of natural knowledge: the other had enjoyed the use of those means, in an eminent degree, and thus justly acquired the reputation of a man of learning. A reciprocation of these different advantages, as may be well supposed, greatly promoted the intellectual improvement of both.

It will be readily conceived, that Mr. Barton’s knowledge of books must have rendered even his conversation instructive to Mr. Rittenhouse, at so early a period of his life. But the former so greatly admired the natural powers of his young friend’s mind, that he took a delight in obtaining for him access to such philosophical works, and other useful books, as he was then enabled to procure for his use; besides directing, as far as he was capable, the course of his studies.

After Mr. Barton’s removal to Philadelphia and while he resided in that city, his means of furnishing his friend with books, suitable for his instruction, were greatly enlarged; an advantage of which he most assiduously availed himself: and it is supposed to have been about this time, that a small circulating library was established in Norriton, at the instance of Mr. Barton, zealously seconded by the co-operation and influence of Mr. Rittenhouse.

Finally, when Mr. Barton returned from England, in the year 1755—at which time Mr. Rittenhouse was yet but twenty-three years of age, he brought with him a valuable addition to his friend’s little library; consisting, in part, of books which he himself had commissioned Mr. Barton to purchase for him.74

No doubt can be entertained, that Mr. Rittenhouse derived the great and extraordinary faculties of his mind from nature; and it is equally evident, that for some years after he arrived to manhood, he possessed very slender means of improving his natural talents: Nay further, it is well known to those who were long personally acquainted with him, that after his removal to Philadelphia, when he was eight-and-thirty years of age, a period of life at which the place of his residence, and the condition of his pecuniary affairs, united in placing within his reach much that is dear to science,—even then, his long continued professional employment and the various public stations he filled, in addition to frequent ill health, deprived him of a large share of those advantages. The vast stock of knowledge which, under such untoward circumstances, he actually acquired, is therefore an additional proof of his native strength of intellect.

But, wonderful as a kind of intuitive knowledge he possessed really was, his mental powers would probably have remained hidden from the world, they would have been very imperfectly cultivated, at best, had not an incident apparently trivial, and which occurred when our Astronomer was a young boy, furnished what was, in all probability, the very first incitement to an active employment of his philosophical as well as mechanical genius.

Mr. Rittenhouse’s mother having been already noticed somewhat particularly, the reason for this being done shall be here stated: it is connected with the incident just now referred to. This valuable woman had two brothers, David and Lewis Williams (or William), both of whom died in their minority. David, the elder of these, pursued the trade of a carpenter, or joiner. Though, like his nephew and namesake, he was almost wholly an uneducated youth, he also, like him, early discovered an unusual genius and strength of mind. After the death of this young man, on opening a chest containing the implements of his trade which was deposited at Mr. M. Rittenhouse’s, (in whose family it is presumed he dwelt,) a few elementary books, treating of arithmetic and geometry, were found in it: With these, there were also various calculations and other papers, in manuscript; all, the productions of David Williams himself, and such as indicated not only an uncommon genius, but an active spirit of philosophical research. To this humble yet valuable coffer of his deceased uncle, Mr. Rittenhouse had free access, while yet a very young boy. He often spoke of this acquisition as a treasure; inasmuch as the instruments of his uncle’s calling afforded him some means of exercising the bent of his genius towards mechanism, while the books and manuscripts early led his mind to those congenial pursuits in mathematical and astronomical science, which Were ever after the favourite objects of his studies.75

It being thus apparent, that not only Mr. Rittenhouse’s mother but her brother David Williams were persons of uncommon intellectual powers, the writer thinks it fairly presumable, that our Astronomer inherited his genius from his mother’s family.76 His surviving brother has decidedly expressed this opinion: in a letter on the subject of the deceased, addressed to the writer of these memoirs soon after Dr. Rittenhouse’s death, he says—“I am convinced his genius was more derived from his mother, than from his father.”

A casualty that occurred in the year 1756, appeared to have been very near depriving the world of the talents, services, and example of our Philosopher, at a very early period of those pursuits in which he was afterwards so eagerly engaged. This circumstance is thus narrated by himself, in a letter dated the 26th of July, in that year, and addressed to the Rev. Mr. Barton, at his then residence in Redding township, York county.77

“I was,” said our young philosopher, “obliged to ride hard to reach Lancaster, the evening after I left you; and being somewhat tired myself, as well as my horse, I determined to go to the Dunker’s-Town,78 where I staid the remainder of that day and the night following. I was there entertained with an epitome of all the whimsies mankind are capable of conceiving. Yet it seemed to me the most melancholy place in the world, and I believe would soon kill me were I to continue there; though the people were exceedingly civil and kind, and the situation of the place is pleasant enough.79 From thence I went homewards, through Reading;80 where I was agreeably surprised, the number and goodness of the buildings far exceeding my expectations.

“You have perhaps seen, in one of the last papers, an account of the prodigiously large hail-stones which fell in Plymouth.81 The lightning struck a tall green poplar standing in our meadow, just before the door, and levelled it with the earth. I was standing between the tree and house; and, at the same instant that I saw the flash of lightning, felt a most violent shock through my whole body,—and was stunned with such a horrible noise, that it is impossible for imagination to represent any thing like it.”

The advantages and the disadvantages, which Mr. Rittenhouse respectively enjoyed and encountered, until after he had attained to the period of manhood, have been mentioned; and it will be readily perceived, that the latter greatly outweighed the former, in every other particular than that of his native genius, which alone was sufficient to preponderate against innumerable difficulties.

The great deficiencies in his education, as well as their causes, having been misconceived and incorrectly represented in some publications, a due regard to truth demands a correction of such mistaken opinions. Soon after his death, there appeared in the Maryland Journal, “Anecdotical Notices of Mr. David Rittenhouse;” which, although written with some ingenuity and knowledge of the subject, contained several errors. It is therein asserted, among other things, that “his parents, incapable of giving him any other education than common reading and writing, intended to have brought him up to country-business; but, being blessed by nature with a mechanical turn of mind, he soon gave specimens of his ingenuity in making wooden clocks: This so recommended him to notice, as to give him an opportunity of learning the clock-making business.”—It has been already shewn, that Mr. Rittenhouse never received the least instruction in any mechanic art; and it is not ascertained that he ever made more than one wooden clock. It is also notoriously an error, that his parents were “incapable” of giving him any other education, than the common schooling he received: they were by no means poor, though not wealthy. His father inherited some patrimony; and he had, besides, been about nine years concerned in conducting the paper-manufactory near Germantown, after his one-and-twentieth year, before he purchased the Norriton farm.82 This part of his estate he was enabled to give to his eldest son, David, about the year 1764; prior to which time the old gentleman removed to a farm he had purchased, nearly adjoining it in Worcester township, and on which he had erected a good two-story stone dwelling-house with suitable out-houses. There Mr. David Rittenhouse’s father and mother afterwards resided, together with their other son, Benjamin, (the house being so constructed as, conveniently, to accommodate two small families,) until the death of old Mrs. Rittenhouse in the autumn of 1777, at the age of seventy-three years, and of her husband in the autumn of 1780, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. The Worcester farm was left to the younger son: and, in addition to these not inconsiderable establishments for his sons, the old gentleman had given small portions to each of his five daughters, when they severally married. The remains of this worthy and upright man, for he truly merited that character, were interred in the cemetery belonging to a Baptist congregation, in the neighbourhood, in which both he and his wife had long attended divine worship. But, some years before his death, the old gentleman disposed of a lot of ground very near to his own house,—and gratuitously, if the writer’s information be correct,—to a Presbyterian congregation, for a burial place, and site for a church they were then about to erect. If this little piece of land was a donation to the religious society to whom it belongs, the grant of it, though not of great value, furnishes an instance of that liberality of sentiment and goodness of heart which characterized our Astronomer’s father, and to which some allusion is before made.

When, therefore, all the circumstances here mentioned, respecting Matthias Rittenhouse’s property and condition of life, shall be taken into view, it will be evident that he possessed a decent competency; with an estate quite independent, though not large: for he never enjoyed what is now termed affluence.

Concerning our Astronomer’s early life and condition, even his eloquent eulogist, Dr. Rush, was mistaken in some particulars. His assertion, that Mr. Rittenhouse was descended from parents “distinguished for probity, industry, and simple manners,” is perfectly correct. But, although he was comparatively “humble” in his “origin,” his father held the highly respectable station of an intelligent, independent farmer;83 and it has been also seen, that his paternal ancestors, for some generations in succession, were proprietors of considerable manufactories of an article important in commerce and the arts, and eminently useful in literature and science as well as in the common affairs of life.

Dr. Rush has remarked, in regard to Mr. Rittenhouse’s talents first becoming generally known, that “the discovery of his uncommon merit belonged chiefly to his brother-in-law, the Rev. Mr. Barton, Dr. Smith, and the late Mr. John Lukens.” Perhaps it might be said, with greater strictness, that the “discovery” here spoken of, belonged solely to Mr. Barton; by whom it was communicated, very early, to his learned and reverend friend, Dr. Smith,—and through him, to the ingenious astronomical observer, Mr. Lukens, (afterwards surveyer-general,) as well as some other distinguished characters of that time. The writer in the Maryland paper before referred to, after having noticed the prevailing opinion that Mr. Rittenhouse was self-taught, had corrected the full extent of that misconception, in these words: “This is not strictly true; for, while engaged in these acquirements,” (astronomy, &c.) “the Rev. Mr. Barton, a learned episcopal clergyman of Lancaster, married his sister.”——“Mr. Barton, admiring the simplicity of manners and natural genius of his brother-in-law, afforded him every assistance in his power,—not only in mathematics, but in several other branches of literature: Mr. Rittenhouse was worthy of his notice; for he lost no time, and spared no pains, to improve himself in knowledge, as far as his limited education would permit.”

Hence, as well as from the preceding narrative, it will appear that Dr. Rush was led into a further mistake, respecting Mr. Rittenhouse.—In regard to his exalted genius, the learned professor has amply done justice to his memory. He has, in particular, recorded one extraordinary fact, in proof of his genius, well worthy of notice; and which is therefore related in the Professor’s own words.——“It was during the residence of our ingenious philosopher with his father, in the country, that he made himself master of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia, which he read in the English translation of Mr. Motte. It was here, likewise, he became acquainted with the science of Fluxions; of which sublime invention he believed himself, for a while, to be the author: nor did he know for some years afterwards, that a contest had been carried on between Sir Isaac Newton and Leibnitz, for the honour of that great and useful discovery.” Then exclaims the ingenious eulogist, in terms of well-founded admiration, “What a mind was here!”—But, immediately after, he adds—“Without literary friends or society, and with but two or three books, he became, before he had reached his four-and-twentieth year, the rival of two of the greatest mathematicians in Europe!”—The circumstance must, then, have escaped Dr. Rush’s recollection—if indeed he had ever been made acquainted with it,—that five years before Mr. Rittenhouse attained to the age of twenty-four, he found at least one literary friend, in Mr. Barton; whose intimate society he long enjoyed, prior to that period; and that, through his means, he had access to many books.84

It is not meant to be insinuated, however, that Mr. Barton ever gave Mr. Rittenhouse any insight into the knowledge of fluxions; or, indeed, much instruction, if any at all, in other of the higher branches of mathematics: because the first named gentleman never did himself pretend to the character of a profound mathematician; and because, likewise, although always esteemed a man of learning, his pursuits in science and literature were chiefly directed to objects of a different nature. That Mr. Rittenhouse derived some instruction and information from his early acquaintance with Mr. Barton, is certain: but, whatever may have been the extent of the literary advantages which the latter was enabled to confer on his young friend and companion, they could not in any degree derogate from the intrinsic excellence and greatness of our Astronomer’s innate genius.

That a mind so formed as that of our young philosopher—situated in life as he was—should have impelled him to assume the business of clock-making, can not be a matter of surprize: this occupation, connected with that of a mathematical instrument maker, is such as may be well supposed to have presented itself to his youthful ingenuity; being in accordance with the philosophical bent of his genius in his early years, while yet untutored in science and unknown to the world.

The great utility of the common clock, in measuring time, is universally known. It possesses numerous and manifest advantages, beyond those of sun-dials, clepsydræ, sand-glasses, and other horological instruments, by reason of its vastly superior accuracy: the sun-dial, indeed, is oftentimes wholly useless in all situations, even in the day-time; and always necessarily so, at night.

But the many improvements which have been made in modern times, in chronometers,—more especially in pendulum-clocks,—have very much advanced a correspondent accuracy in astronomical observations: and these improvements, together with those lately made in telescopes—chiefly by Dr. Herschel, the discoverer of the Georgium Sidus85—afford good grounds for hoping, that yet farther and more important additions will continue to be made to the recent discoveries in astronomy.

Further improvements may also be expected to take place, in the construction of watches and other spring-chronometers; so as to render them still more useful for the purposes of navigation, by ascertaining with greater precision the longitude at sea.86 For this purpose, the finely-improved English time-keepers of Harrison, Mudge, and others, have been found of the greatest utility. Mr. de Zach, (in his Explanation and uses of the Tables of the Motions of the Sun,87) after some observations on determining differences of longitude by means of astronomical observation, says,88—“De cæteris longitudinem determinandi modis, non est hic disserendi locus;—de uno vero, horologiâ maritimâ seu nauticâ, quidquam adjicere non alienum erit. Triginta jam abhinc annis, ingeniosissimi horologiorum artifices, Harrison, Cummings, Kendal, Arnold, Mudge, apud Anglos,—Le Roy et Berthoud apud Gallos, varia navigantium usui, egregia excogitaverant, et ad magnum perduxerant perfectionis gradum, horologia nautica, (Anglis, Time-keeper.) Cum eorum in longitudinibus itenere maritimo definiendis, usum quisque norit, plura hic dicere abstineo; simile horologium ab ingenioso horolopega Thom. Mudge constructum, in Observatorio Regio Grenovicensi sæpius exploratum, anno 1784, a Clar. D. Campbell, classis navalis præfecto 89 ad Terram Novam (Newfoundland) vectum, et reductum, ab hoc tempore in Observatorio Excellentissimi Comitis de Bruhl, Londini, Doverstreet, assidue observatum est. Hoc ipsum horologium maritimum, anno 1786, in terrestribus, iteneris longitudines determinandi gratia, concreditum mihi fuit, cum â Serenissimo Duce Saxe-Gothanâ, omnium scientiarum bonarumque artium patrono, imprimis astronomiæ, faventissimo, Londino evocatus in Germaniam me conferrem, ubi amplissimæ splendidissimæ Speculæ, Astronomicæ Gothanæ extruendæ cura mihi demandata erat;90 attuli eodem hoc tempore, ad Serenissimi mandatum, minoris molis horologium, quod in braccis gestari solet (Anglis, Pocket-chronometer,) a Londiniensi artifice, D. Josiah Emery,91 constructum, quod summâ accuratione et subtilitate elaboratum, nil majoribus cedit horologiis nauticis, ut videre licet ex tribus horum motuum elenchis ab Ilustr. Comite de Bruhl, et â aliorum Dr. Arnold, nuperrime publici juris factis. Sub finem anni 1786 et ad initium 1787, Serenissimum in itenere per Germaniam, Galliam, et Italiam, comitatus sum: hoc itenere quorundam locorum et Specularum astronomicarum longitudines definitæ sunt ex comparatione temporis horologii maritimi (quod ad tempus solare medium Londinense, in Doverstreet incedebat) cum tempore medio loci, quod sextante Hadleianâ per solis altitudines, quas correspondentes dicimus, vel ex comparatione cum illo, quod in Speculis Astronomicis ab ipsis astronomis traditum nobis fuit. Iisdem itaque automatis, cum primum Gotham advenissem, observatorii futuri longitudinem maximâ cum curâ atque diligentiâ definivi, quam paucis post diebus Serenissimus Dux Londinum profectus, chronometro suo secum deportato denuo perbelle comprobaverat.”

This very respectable testimony of an eminent German astronomer affords incontestable proof of the great accuracy, of which nautical chronometers are susceptible, and to which they have actually been brought by some artists of celebrity, mostly English.92

The general use of the common clock ought not to derogate from the ingenuity of an invention of such universal importance in the affairs of human life. The pendulum-clock now in use was brought to some degree of perfection, if not invented, by Huygens,93 who was one of the first mathematicians and astronomers of the age in which he lived: and the date of this invention is about the middle of the seventeenth century; although Galileo disputed with him the discovery, a few years earlier. Clocks of some kind date their antiquity much higher; some writers pretending to carry their invention back as far as the year 510 of the Christian era. However, on the authority of Conrad Gesner,94 the honour of inventing the clock, before the application of the pendulum to these machines was made by Huygens, belongs to England: He says, that “Richard Wallingford, an English abbot of St. Albans, who flourished in the year 1326, made a wonderful clock by a most excellent art; the like of which could not be produced in all Europe.”95 This was forty-six years before Henry de Vic, a German, made his clock for Charles V. king of France; and fifty-six years before the duke of Burgundy ordered one, which sounded the hour, to be carried away from the city of Courtray, in Flanders.

Within our own day and a short period of time preceding it, great improvements have been made in the construction of the pendulum-clock,96 as well as in other descriptions of Chronometers.97 Mr. Rittenhouse’s early zeal in his practical researches into astronomy, prompted him to desire the greatest possible accuracy in the construction of time-pieces adapted to astronomical purposes; and uniting, as he did, operative skill with a thorough knowledge of the principles upon which their construction depends, he was enabled—impelled by so powerful a motive—to display to the world, by his own manual ingenuity, the near approach to perfection to which the pendulum-chronometer may be brought. Besides his astronomical pursuits, his early employment in ascertaining the limits and fixing the territorial boundaries of Pennsylvania, and of some of the neighbouring states, obliged him to supply himself with chronometers of the greatest possible accuracy: and these were either made by his own hands, or under his immediate inspection by his brother, who, with the aid of his instruction, became an excellent mechanician. One of these fine instruments, bearing on its face the name of Benjamin Rittenhouse as the maker, and the date of the year 1786, is now in the possession of Mr. Norton Prior,98 of Philadelphia: but that admirable one, the workmanship of which was executed by our Philosopher himself, and which was part of the apparatus of his Philadelphia Observatory, is now placed in the hall of the American Philosophical Society.99 This is constructed on a greatly improved plan of his own, which improvement was afterwards applied to that now belonging to Mr. Prior; and the latter is the same chronometer, it is believed, that was used by Mr. D. Rittenhouse, in fixing the northern line which divides Pennsylvania from New York, and in establishing the boundary line between the last mentioned state, and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, respectively, in the years 1786 and 1787.—A description of the principles of his observatory-chronometer here mentioned, together with some account of its mechanism, will be found in the Appendix: the former having been communicated to the writer of these memoirs by the ingenious Robert Patterson, Esq. director of the Mint; and the latter by that able mechanician, Mr. Henry Voight, chief coiner in that institution,—a person who, by reason of his well-known skill as a clock and watch-maker, was employed by Mr. Rittenhouse more than forty years since, in the fabrication of some of his philosophical instruments.

The great accuracy and exquisite workmanship displayed in every thing belonging to the profession he pursued, that came through his hands, soon became pretty extensively known: and this knowledge of his mechanical abilities, assisted by the reputation he had already acquired as a mathematician and astronomer, in a short time procured him the friendship, respect and patronage, of some eminent scientific characters; while it promoted his interest, in the profession he had thus newly chosen. In this he was, nevertheless, self-taught; for he never received the least instruction from any person, in any mechanic art whatever: and, therefore, if he were to be considered as being merely an excellent artist, in an occupation intimately connected with the science of mathematics—untutored, as he was, in any art or science,—he would deservedly be deemed an extraordinary and eminent man. It will be perceived, however, that it was the union of the almost unbounded powers of his genius, and his prodigious acquirements in a sublime science, with his wonderful abilities as a philosophical mechanic—and these faculties and attainments, moreover, combined with an amiable and virtuous character,—which constituted that celebrity so justly attached to his name.

Our young philosopher lived a retired, though by no means an inactive life, in his father’s family, for several years after he arrived to (what is usually termed) lawful age. In this situation, which was a pleasant one in many respects, he long continued to enjoy the tranquil scenes of rural life, amidst the society of an amiable and very intelligent family-circle, and surrounded by many worthy and estimable neighbours, by whom he was both loved and respected. His chief occupation was the profession he had chosen; but in such occasional intervals of personal abstraction from the mechanical part of his business, as the assistance the workmen he employed enabled him to obtain, he devoted much of the time to philosophical pursuits and study. Frugal in his expenditures, his industry furnished him amply with the means of comfort; and in the plentiful and decent mansion of his father’s family he experienced, with contentment, almost every gratification that a reasonable mind could desire. Good health seemed alone to be wanting to complete his happiness, in his earlier years; a privation which he felt through the greater part of his life.

Such was the condition of Mr. Rittenhouse, while he remained under the same roof with his father and mother, and some of their unmarried children. It was a mode of life which his disposition was calculated to enjoy; for, strongly attached to his kindred and friends by the benevolence of his nature, he derived much of his happiness from the reciprocal affections of a domestic circle and the kind intercourses of friendly esteem.

There does not appear to have been, for a long time, any occurrence that could have much disturbed the placid composure of our philosopher’s mind,—until 1762; in which year his sister Anne died, in the twenty-sixth year of her age. She was the wife of Mr. George Shoemaker, a respectable citizen of Philadelphia, and a member of the religious society of Friends. A letter which Mr. Rittenhouse wrote to his brother-in-law Mr. Barton, in October 1762, announcing this event, indicates the keenness of his sensibility on the occasion. Mrs. Shoemaker was a woman of intrinsic worth; she died in the prime of life; and it is believed, she was the first of Mr. Rittenhouse’s affectionate little band of brothers and sisters who had attained to the age of maturity, that he had then lost. After giving a circumstantial account of his sister’s illness and death, he informs Mr. Barton, that Mr. Daniel Stanton, an eminent public speaker in the society of Friends,100 attended her in her last illness, at her particular request;—and, added Mr. Rittenhouse, “the same worthy gentleman who visited her in her sickness, delivered an excellent exhortation at the grave,—giving, in a few words, a very just character, I think, of our deceased sister.”

Mr. Shoemaker (who married again) had an only child named Jacob, by his first wife here mentioned. This son became a young man of promising character: but, having entered the American army at the commencement of the revolutionary war, and attained (it is believed) the rank of captain, under the patronage of his uncle David Rittenhouse, he was slain in the campaign of 1781, in South-Carolina. Mr. Rittenhouse was much afflicted by the death of this gallant young man, who fell in the flower of his age.

An occasion presented itself, in which Mr. Rittenhouse, when only in the thirty-second year of his age, was employed in transacting an important piece of business of a public nature: it was as follows.

In consequence of a petition of the Messrs. Penn to the court of chancery in England, exhibited in the year 1735, it was decreed by the lord chancellor, in 1750,—That an agreement which had been entered into between the Penns and Lord Baltimore, concerning the long-subsisting controversy relative to the boundary lines between Pennsylvania and Maryland, should be carried into specific execution: and, accordingly, a final agreement was executed by those proprietaries of the two provinces, on the fourth day July, 1760.

In pursuance of the chancellor’s decree, provision was made for ascertaining and fixing the “circle,” to be “drawn at twelve miles distance from New-Castle, northward and westward, unto the beginning of the fortieth degree of north latitude;”—and thence, running a straight line westward, five degrees in longitude, to be computed from the eastern boundary; as described in the royal charter to William Penn. Commissioners were appointed under the chancery-degree, for settling these boundaries. But nothing was definitively done in the business, until the eleventh of January, 1769; when the line which was run by Messrs. Mason and Dixon in the years 1767 and 1768, in pursuance of the final agreement between the parties before mentioned, was approved and ratified by the king in council.

So early, however, as about the close of the year 1763, four or five years before the running and marking of Mason and Dixon’s line, Mr. Rittenhouse was employed by the Penn family in making some geographical arrangements, preparatory to the final establishment of those boundaries. He was engaged to perform this service, by the Rev. Mr. Richard Peters, (afterwards D. D. and rector of the united churches of Christ-Church and St. Peters, in Philadelphia,) who then officiated as the Governor’s provincial secretary; a gentleman of learning and great worth; and one who, on various occasions, manifested a friendship for Mr. Rittenhouse, as well the high opinion he entertained of his abilities.

The particular department of that business thus committed to Mr. Rittenhouse, seems to have been the fixing of the Circle,—or at least, the tracing of its course or route, topographically; and this was, certainly, a matter of no little difficulty. That this service was performed to the satisfaction of the then administrators of the government of Pennsylvania, and that it was an arduous one, will appear by the following extract of a letter from Mr. Rittenhouse to the Rev. Mr. Barton, dated the sixteenth of February, 1764.101

“I hope,” said he, “you will never believe that I am determined to disclaim all kind of intercourse” with you: for I can say with the greatest sincerity there are very few things I so much regret, as that I have it not in my power to spend a great part of my time with you. My attention has, for some time past, been engaged with such a multiplicity of things, that I may with some reason claim your indulgence for my not writing. Have I not, indeed, an equal right to complain?—for, I think this letter will balance our accounts, from the time I last saw you.

“I waited on Mr. Peters, as you desired me to do. He treated me kindly, and made an offer of doing me some services; for which I am greatly obliged to him. He likewise paid me for my attendance at New-Castle, and much more generously than I expected;—though I found it a very laborious affair; being obliged, singly, to go through a number of tedious and intricate calculations.”

It appears that about this time, Mr. Rittenhouse’s friends had some beneficial object in view for him; perhaps some official situation, which they conceived to be adapted to the nature of his pursuits, and such as might more permanently promote his interests. But whatever that object may have been, he seems to have hesitated about it. If it were a public appointment of a permanent kind, it would probably have required his removal to the city,—a measure which he did not contemplate at that time; and he might, besides, have been disinclined to undertake any official duties, which would be likely to occupy the greater part of his time. He expressed himself thus to Mr. Barton, on the subject, in the letter just quoted:—“I am greatly obliged to you, my dear brother, for pointing out any prospect of advantage to me: I shall consider the matter you mention in your last, and let you know my opinion. The objections you have so well answered, are those which would most readily occur to me. Considering the crazy state of my constitution, a retired life would certainly suit me best. Since death, to use John Bunyan’s 102 phrase, does usually knock at my door once a day, would it not be a folly for me to take up the load of any public business?”

About three years afterwards, Mr. Rittenhouse seemed to have been less indisposed to accept of an official situation: and, such was his high standing with the government and its most influential friends, there can be very little doubt he could have obtained a respectable one. It is evident that, at this latter period, when perhaps his health was improved, he had some particular office in view: because, by a letter to Mr. Barton, dated January 28th 1767, he said—“I am entirely satisfied with your proceedings in the affair I recommended to you; and I shall wait on Mr. Peters. The reputation of the office would be very agreeable to me; but the execution of it would, I am afraid, greatly interfere with the other projects you have so much insisted on.”

Mr. Rittenhouse continued a bachelor until the 20th of February, 1766, when he married Eleanor Colston, daughter of Bernard Colston, a reputable farmer in the neighbourhood. This person belonged to the religious society called Quakers; Mr. Rittenhouse was not himself a member of any particular church: but the marriage was solemnized at Norriton, by the Rev. Mr. Barton, who went thither for the purpose at his brother-in-law’s request.

Some time prior to this event, old Mr. Rittenhouse, having previously made his son David the proprietor of the Norriton farm, removed with his family to the house he had built 103 on his place in Worcester township, already mentioned; while the son’s family occupied the old place of residence: and here our Astronomer remained about four years after his marriage. It was during this period, that his reputation as an astronomer became eminently conspicuous;104 his name acquired a celebrity even in the old world, of which his early but now much increased fame, in his native country, was a sure presage.105

About the time that he projected his Orrery (which shall be duly noticed in its place), it appears he had been speculating on the doctrine of the compressibility of water. For in a letter to Mr. Barton, dated from Philadelphia the 27th of March, 1767, he mentions,—that he had not then met with any person, who had seen Mr. Kinnersley’s 106 experiment on that theory; but that he understood it was made with the air-pump, and conjectured it to have been similar to the one made by a member of the Royal Society, related in Martin’s Magazine: which is thus quoted in Mr. Rittenhouse’s letter:

“I took a glass ball of about an inch and ⁶/₁₀ in diameter, which was joined to a cylindrical tube of 4 inches and ²/₁₀ in length, and in diameter ¹/₁₀₀ of an inch; and by weighing the quantity of mercury that exactly filled the ball, and also the quantity that filled the tube, I found that the mercury in ²³/₁₀₀ of an inch of the tube was the 10000th part of that contained in the ball; and with the edge of a file, I divided the tube accordingly. This having been done, I filled the ball and part of the tube with water exhausted of air: Now, by placing this ball and tube under the receiver of an air-pump, I could see the degree of expansion of the water, answering to any degree of rarefaction of the air; and by putting it into a glass receiver of a condensing engine, I could see the degree of compression of the water, answering to any degree of condensation of the air, &c.”—Then adds. Mr. Rittenhouse—“Indeed I do not doubt the compressibility of water, although the above experiment does not much please me. If the particles of water were in actual contact, it would be difficult to conceive how any body could much exceed it in specific gravity; yet we find that gold does, more than eighteen times.”

The first academic honour conferred upon our philosopher, was on the 17th of November, 1767; when the College of Philadelphia, then in its meridian splendour, bestowed on him an honorary degree of Master of Arts. Mr. Rittenhouse being present at the commencement then held, the provost, in conferring this degree, thus addressed him,—in terms of a just and well merited compliment:

“Sir,—The trustees of this College (the faculty of professors cheerfully concurring), being ever desirous to distinguish real merit, especially in the natives of this province,—and well-assured of the extraordinary progress and improvement which you have made, by a felicity of natural genius, in mechanics, mathematics, astronomy, and other liberal arts and sciences, all which you have adorned by singular modesty and irreproachable morals,—have authorized and required me to admit you to the honorary degree of Master of Arts, in this seminary: I de therefore, by virtue of this authority, most cheerfully admit, &c.”

Mr. Rittenhouse’s great abilities, as an astronomer and mathematician, being now every where known, he was employed in the year 1769, in settling the limits between the provinces of New-York and New-Jersey. The original grant of all the territory, called by the Dutch New-Netherlands (sometimes Nova-Belgia), was made by King Charles II. to James Duke of York, on the 12th of March, 1663-4; and on the 24th of June following, the Duke granted that part of it, now called New-Jersey, to the Lord Berkeley of Stratton and Sir George Carteret, jointly. The Dutch reduced the country, in the year 1672; but it was restored by the peace of Westminster, February the 9th, 1673-4. On the 29th of June, in the same year, a new patent was issued to the Duke of York, for the lands comprised within the limits described in the former patent. On the 28th of the succeeding July, the colony of New-Jersey was divided into East and West-Jersey (hence, generally called the Jersies); and the former was then granted, by the Duke of York, to Sir George Carteret. In 1675, West-Jersey, being Lord Berkeley’s moiety of the province, was sold to John Fenwick, in trust for Edward Bylinge; who assigned his interest therein to William Penn and others,107 in trust, for the use of his creditors. This partition was confirmed in the year 1719, by the general assembly of the Jersies. But prior to this confirmation, viz. the 10th of October, 1678, a new grant of West-Jersey was made by the Duke of York, to the assigns of Lord Berkeley; and on the 1st of February, 1681-2, East-Jersey was sold and conveyed, in pursuance of Sir George Carteret’s will, to twelve persons; who, by separate deeds, conveyed one-half of their several interests in the same to twelve other persons: and, on the 14th of the next month, the Duke of York made a new grant of East-Jersey to those twenty-four proprietors, thereby confirming the same to them. The proprietors of both the Jersies afterwards became very numerous, by purchase as well as by descent. This being attended with great inconveniencies, they finally surrendered the government to the crown, on the 17th of April, 1702: and from that time, the province of New-Jersey continued to be a royal government, until the American revolution.

The division-line, between East and West-Jersey, was to run from the south-east point of Little Egg-Harbour, on Barnegate Creek—being about midway between Cape-May and Sandy-Hook, to a creek, a little below Ancocus-Creek, on the river Delaware; thence, about thirty-five miles in a straight course, along the Delaware, up to 44° 40´ of north latitude.

The province of New-York passed a legislative act on this subject, in the year 1762; and the New-Jersey Assembly enacted a corresponding law, in 1764. Five commissioners—namely, John Stevens, James Parker, Henry Cuyler, William Donaldson, and Walter Rutherford—were appointed on this business, for the two provinces: their report was passed upon, by both; and it was confirmed by the King in council, the 1st of September, 1773. It is understood, that the division-line between East and West-Jersey remained unsettled, so late as the year 1789. But it nevertheless appears, that the territorial boundary between New-York and New-Jersey was fixed by Mr. Rittenhouse, forty-four years ago.

A recurrence shall now be had to a date anterior to our Philosopher’s employment in the transaction just mentioned.—Within the two years preceding that period, two objects of much importance to astronomical science, claimed a large share of the public attention, in this country: One of them, especially, had already actually engaged the investigations of the ablest astronomers of the other hemisphere, as well as our own; preparatory to the then approaching event, to which those researches were directed. The result of the expectations excited by both of those objects proved, on their final completion, highly honourable to the fame of Mr. Rittenhouse.

The first of these, in the order of time, was our Astronomer’s newly-projected Orrery; a general but concise description of which, was communicated by his friend, the Rev. Dr. Smith, to the Philosophical Society, on the 21st of March, 1768. Of this fine and eminently useful piece of mechanism, more particular mention shall be made in the sequel.

The other circumstance, just referred to, was the then approaching Transit of Venus over the Sun’s disk; an event which was to take place on the 3d day of June, 1769: And of Mr. Rittenhouse’s participation in the arduous labours of the astronomical world, on that very interesting occasion, the following narrative will furnish some account.

The American Philosophical Society, in their meeting on the 7th of January, 1769, had appointed the following gentlemen to observe that rare phænomenon,108 as it was aptly styled by Dr. Smith; namely, the. Rev. Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Ewing, Mr. Thomas Prior, Joseph Shippen, jun. Esq., Hugh Williamson, M. D., the Rev. Dr. Smith, Mr. David Rittenhouse, John Lukens, Esq. and Messrs. James Alexander, Owen Biddle, James Pearson, John Sellers, Charles Thomson, and William Poole. The gentlemen thus nominated were distributed into three committees, for the purpose of making separate observations at three several places; these were, the city of Philadelphia, Mr. Rittenhouse’s residence, in Norriton, and the Light-House near Cape Henlopen, on Delaware Bay. Dr. Ewing, an able mathematician and very respectable astronomer, had the principal direction of the Observatory in the City, which was erected on this occasion in the State-house Gardens; and Mr. O. Biddle, a person of much ingenuity, had the charge of superintending the observations at Cape Henlopen. Associated with Mr. Rittenhouse, on the Norriton committee, were the Rev. Dr. Smith, provost of the College of Philadelphia, well known as an astronomer and eminently skilled in the mathematics; Mr. Lukens, then surveyor-general of Pennsylvania, who possessed considerable abilities in the same departments of science; and Mr. Sellers, a respectable member of the provincial legislature, for the county of Chester. The Rev. Mr. Barton, with some other gentlemen of ingenuity and talents, voluntarily attended at Norriton, on this occasion; and rendered such assistance as they could, to the committee.

As the time approached near, when this extraordinary and almost unprecedented 109 astronomical phænomenon was to manifest itself, the public expectation and anxiety, which were before considerable, became greatly heightened. The ignorant—and those, generally, unacquainted with the nature of the looked-for event,—hearing much every where said on the subject, and seeing the preparations making for the occasion, had their curiosity wonderfully excited. To scientific men, the inestimable value of the approaching phænomenon suggested very different sensations. “Its importance to the interests of Astronomy and Navigation, had,” as Dr. Ewing observed at the time, “justly drawn the attention of every civilized nation in the world.” An accurate ascertainment of the Sun’s Parallax,—an important. and fundamental article in Astronomy, was a desideratum not yet obtained. Only two Transits of Venus over the Sun, had been observed, prior to the 3d of June, 1769, since the creation of the world; and of these, the first alone was seen but by two persons:110 Yet, as the learned gentleman just quoted has remarked,—“the Transits of Venus, alone, afford an opportunity of determining this problem” (the settling the Parallax of the Sun,) “with sufficient certainty: and these,” he adds, “happen so seldom, that there cannot be more than two in one century, and in some centuries none at all.”

To an object, then, of such vast importance to science, were proportioned the expectations of our Observers. But they could not fail to experience, at the same time, in common with their astronomical brethren in other parts of the world, a large portion of anxious apprehensions, lest a cloudy day—nay, even a solitary passing cloud,—should baffle entirely their exalted hopes, and destroy all the fruits of their arduous labours! Yet such an occurrence, as one or the other of these events, was evidently within the calculations of a probable incident.

Mr. Rittenhouse participated largely in these blended hopes and fears. He had, for some time before, been laboriously employed in making the requisite preparatory observations and calculations: and, as Norriton was now rendered eminently conspicuous, by being fixed on as a principal site for observing the very interesting phænomenon so near at hand, he had been assiduously engaged, at the same time, in preparing and furnishing an Observatory at that place, suitable for the occasion. This he began to erect early in November, 1768,—“agreeably,” to use his own words, “to the resolutions of the American Philosophical Society;” but, through various disappointments from workmen and weather, he was not enabled to complete it till the middle of April, 1769.111

The Norriton Observatory was commodiously situated near Mr. Rittenhouse’s mansion, on a pretty elevated piece of ground, commanding a good range of horizontal view. This temporary edifice was as well adapted to the purpose for which it was chiefly designed, as the nature of the materials of which it was constructed, and other circumstances, would permit. Some monies had been previously appropriated by the Philosophical Society, towards defraying the expenses necessarily incident to this occasion, at the three several places of observation: but the funds of the society, at their disposal for such purposes, were very limited; and it is believed that the quota of these funds assigned for the expenditures actually incurred for making the observations of the transit, at Norriton, was quite inconsiderable in its amount.

In order that ample justice may be done to the merits of Mr. Rittenhouse, for all the preparatory arrangements made by him on this occasion, the reader is here presented with an extract from Dr. Smith’s subsequent Report, to the Philosophical Society, of the proceedings of the Norriton Committee, and made in their behalf.—“I am persuaded” says the doctor, “that the dependance which the learned world may place on any particular Transit-Account, will be in proportion to the previous and subsequent care, which is found to have been taken in a series of accurate and well conducted observations, for ascertaining the going of the time-pieces, and fixing the latitude and longitude of the place of observations, &c. And I am the more desirous to be particular in these points, in order to do justice to Mr. Rittenhouse, one of the committee; to whose extraordinary skill and diligence is owing whatever advantage may be derived, in these respects, to our observation of the Transit itself.”—“Our great discouragement at our first appointment,” continues the learned reporter, “was the want of proper apparatus, especially good Telescopes with Micrometers. The generosity of our Provincial Assembly soon removed a great part of this discouragement, not only by their vote to purchase one of the best reflecting Telescopes, with a Dollond’s micrometer;112 but likewise by their subsequent donation of one hundred pounds,” (this was in sterling money, = $444) “for erecting Observatories and defraying other incidental expences.113 It was forseen, that on the arrival of the Telescope, added to such private ones as might be procured in the city, together with fitting up the instruments belonging to the honourable the Proprietaries of the province—viz. the equal Altitude and Transit Instruments and the large astronomical Sector,—nothing would be wanted for the city Observatory in the State-House Square, but a good Time-piece, which was easily to be procured. We remained, however, still at a loss, how to furnish the Norriton Observatory:114 But even this difficulty gradually vanished.”

Thus it appears, that while the public contributions, and such astronomical instruments suitable for the occasion as were the public property, were principally at the disposal of the Philadelphia committee, the Observatory at Norriton—which seems to have been considered as a private establishment, belonging to an individual,—depended almost entirely on other resources. Even an excellent reflecting telescope (though without a micrometer,) the property of the Library Company of Philadelphia, and to which institution it was a donation from the Hon. T. Penn,—the same that had been used by Messrs. Macon and Dixon, when employed in settling the boundary lines of Pennsylvania and Maryland—was necessarily appropriated to the use of Mr. Owen Biddle, who was appointed by the Society to conduct the Observation of the Transit, near Cape Henlopen.

The Norriton Observatory was, notwithstanding, at last completely furnished with every instrument proper for the occasion. In consequence of some previous communications made by Dr. Smith to the Hon. Mr. T. Penn of London, and to the Rev. Mr. Maskelyne, the British astronomer-royal at Greenwich, the former worthy and liberal gentleman had sent, for the use of the Norriton committee, a reflecting Telescope with Dollond’s Micrometer—such as the doctor had expressed a wish to obtain; and requested, that after the committee should have made their observations with it, it should be presented in his name to the College.115 Through the means of Dr. Smith, likewise, an astronomical quadrant of two and an half feet radius, made by Sisson, the property of the East-Jersey proprietaries, was procured by Mr. Lukens from the Earl of Stirling, surveyor-general of that province. This had been pretty early sent up by Mr. Lukens to Mr. Rittenhouse, and was used by him in ascertaining the latitude of his Observatory.

In addition to these and some other apparatus used at Norriton on the occasion—a catalogue and description of the whole of which, are contained in Dr. Smith’s before-mentioned report—the zeal, industry, and talents of Mr. Rittenhouse enabled him to furnish his Observatory with the three following described instruments, made by himself,116 as described by Dr. Smith.

1. An Equal Altitude Instrument—its telescope three and an half feet focal length, with two horizontal hairs, and a vertical one in its focus; firmly supported on a stone pedestal, and easily adjusted to a plummet-wire four feet in length, by two screws, one moving in a North and South, the other in an East and West direction.

2. A Transit Telescope, fixed in the meridian, on fine steel points; so that the hair in its focus could move in no other direction than along the meridian; in which were two marks, South and North, about 330 yards distance each; to which it could be readily adjusted in an horizontal position by one screw, as it could in a vertical position, by another.

3. An excellent Time-piece—having for its pendulum-rod a flat steel bar, with a bob weighing about twelve pounds, and vibrating in a small arch. This went eight days, did not stop when wound up, beat dead seconds, and was kept in motion by a weight of five pounds.117

Thus was the Norriton Observatory furnished with all the more immediately necessary apparatus, in readiness for the important event which was the main object of these arduous exertions. Much credit was due to Dr. Smith, much to Mr. Lukens and the other gentlemen engaged on this occasion, for the assistance which he, and they, afforded Mr. Rittenhouse. Yet the doctor himself very candidly says—in reporting the proceedings of the Norriton committee to the Philosophical Society,—“other engagements did not permit Mr. Lukens or myself to pay much attention to the necessary preparations; but we knew that we had entrusted them to a gentleman on the spot, who had joined to a complete skill in mechanics, so extensive an astronomical and mathematical knowledge, that the use, management, and even the construction of the necessary apparatus, were perfectly familiar to him. Mr. Lukens and myself could not set out for his house till Thursday, June 1st; but, on our arrival there, we found every preparation so forward, that we had little to do, but to adjust our respective telescopes to distinct vision. He had fitted up the different instruments, and made a great number of observations, to ascertain the going of his Time-piece, and to determine the latitude and longitude of his Observatory. The laudable pains he hath taken in these material articles,” continues Dr. Smith in his report, “will best appear from the work itself,—which he hath committed into my hands, with the following modest introduction; giving me a liberty, which his own accuracy, care and abilities, leave no room to exercise.”118

Norriton, July 18th 1769.

“Dear Sir,

“The enclosed is the best account I can give of the Contacts, as I observed them; and of what I saw during the interval between them. I should be glad you would contract them, and also the other papers, into a smaller compass,—as I would have done myself, if I had known how. I beg you would not copy any thing merely because I have written it, but leave out what you think superfluous.—I am, with great esteem and affection, yours, &c.

David Rittenhouse.119

To Rev. Dr. Smith.”

The result of the Norriton Observations of the Transit of Venus—as well as those also made under the auspices of the American Philosophical Society, at Philadelphia and Cape Henlopen—will be found, in detail, in the first volume of the Transactions of that Society.120 And “the Work itself,” to which Dr. Smith refers, in his Report of the Proceedings of the Norriton Committee, bears ample testimony to the transcendent Astronomical Abilities of Mr. Rittenhouse.—Four days after the Transit, Dr. Smith transmitted to the Hon. Mr. Penn, in London, a short account of the Norriton Observations, more particularly mentioning the times of the Contacts, and a few other circumstances attending them. This was speedily communicated by Mr. Penn to the Rev. Mr. Maskelyne,121 the Astronomer Royal; who, acknowledging the receipt of the communication, by a note, dated at Greenwich the 2d of August, 1769, says—“I thank you for the account of the Pennsylvania Observations (of the Transit,) which seem excellent and complete,122 and do honour to the gentlemen who made them 123, and those who promoted the undertaking;— among whom, I reckon yourself 124 in the first place.”125

Here the observation will emphatically apply;—Laus est, â viro laudato laudari.

Before this interesting occurrence in the life of Mr. Rittenhouse is finally passed over, the reader’s attention is solicited to the beautiful and animated description given by Dr. Rush, in his Eulogium, of the sensations which must have been more particularly experienced by that extraordinary man, on the near approach of the long-expected Phænomenon.—“We are naturally led here,” says the learned Professor, “to take a view of our Philosopher, with his associates, in their preparations to observe a phænomenon which had never been seen but twice 126 before, by any inhabitant of our earth, which would never be seen again by any person then living, and on which depended very important astronomical consequences. The night before the long-expected day, was probably passed in a degree of solicitude which precluded sleep. How great must have been their joy, when they beheld the morning sun!—‘and the whole horizon without a cloud;’ for such is the description of the day, given by Mr. Rittenhouse, in the report referred to by Dr. Smith. In pensive silence and trembling anxiety, they waited for the predicted moment of observation: it came,—and brought with it all that had been wished for, and expected, by those who saw it.—In our Philosopher, it excited—in the instant of one of the contacts of the planet with the sun, an emotion of delight so exquisite and powerful, as to induce fainting. This,” then remarks Dr. Rush, “will readily be believed by those who have known the extent of that pleasure which attends the discovery, or first perception of Truth.”

On the 9th of November, following, there was a Transit of Mercury over the Sun. An account of this phænomenon,—as observed at Norriton by William Smith, d. d. John Lukens, Esq. and Messrs. David Rittenhouse and Owen Biddle, the Committee appointed for that Observation by the American Philosophical Society,—was drawn up and communicated to the Society, by direction and in behalf of the Committee, by Dr. Smith: this will be found in the first volume of the Society’s Transactions. In this report it is remarked, that—“the first time that ever Mercury was observed on the Sun’s disk, was by Gassendus at Paris, October 28th 1631, O. S. and that the Transit of Nov. 9th was the fourth in that class; the two intermediate ones, each at forty-six years distance, having been observed by Dr. Halley, in 1677 and 1723.”

Mr. Maskelyne, the celebrated English Astronomer before mentioned,127—in a letter to Dr. Smith, of the 26th of December, 1769—expressed a wish “that the difference of Meridians of Norriton and Philadelphia, could be determined by some measures and bearings, within one-fiftieth or one-hundredth part ^of the whole; in order to connect,” continues Mr. Maskelyne, “your observations of the Longitude of Norriton with those made by Messrs. Mason and Dixon, in the course of measuring the degree of Latitude.”—This request of the Astronomer Royal was communicated to the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia; in consequence of which, Dr. Smith, Mr. Lukens and Mr. Rittenhouse, were appointed to make the terrestrial measurement required. These gentlemen, having taken to their assistance Mr. Archibald M’Clean and Mr. Jesse Lukens, two able and experienced Surveyors, commenced their operations at Norriton, early on the 2d day of July following, and completed their survey on the 4th day of that month. The Report of the able Committee, to which this business was assigned by the American Philosophical Society, is also contained in the first volume of the Transactions of that learned Body. After giving various calculations, resulting from the operations of that committee, the Reporter says—“Hence, by the above measurement and work, we get Norriton Observatory 52″ of time West of the Observatory in the State-house Square; which is exactly what we got by that excellent element, the external contact of Mercury with the Sun, Nov. 9th 1769.”—“The external contact,” continues the Reporter, “gave it something more; owing, no doubt, to the difference that will arise among Observers, in determining the exact moment when the thread of light is compleated: and the mean of all our Observations gives the difference of Meridians, between Norriton and Philadelphia, only 4″ of time more than the terrestrial measurement, and the external contact of Mercury, gave it,—which may be taken as a very great degree of exactness; if we consider that the difference of Meridians, between the long-established Observatories of Greenwich and Paris, (as Mr. De la Lande writes, Nov. 18th 1762,) was not then determined within 20″ of time—For, he says, ‘some called it 9′ 15″; others, 9′ 40″;’ but that he himself commonly used 9′ 20″, though he could not tell from what Observations it was deduced.128—Finally, the Report fixes Philadelphia to be 5^h 0′ 37″, and Norriton, 5^h 1′ 29″ West from Greenwich.129 The Latitude of Norriton, as deduced from the actual mensuration just mentioned, connected with Observations previously made by Mr. Rittenhouse—predicated also, in part, on antecedent Calculations of Messrs. Mason and Dixon, who, (having been furnished with a complete Astronomical Sector,) had ascertained the southernmost point of the City of Philadelphia to be in Latitude 39° 56′ 29″,4. N.—is stated, in the same Report, as being 40° 9′ 31″. It came out, by the measurement, 25″.09 less North, with respect to the southernmost point of Philadelphia, than Mr. Rittenhouse’s Observations had given it; and, in making these, he had no better Instrument than Sisson’s two-and-an half feet Quadrant. Nevertheless, the framer of the Report remarks, “as both were fixed by celestial observations and experienced Men, the small difference ought perhaps to be divided; and if a mean be taken, to reconcile it with the terrestrial measure, the Lat. of the south point of Philadelphia would be 39° 56′ 42″; and that of Norriton, 40° 9′ 43″.130

The same Volume of the American Philosophical Transactions that comprehends the communications of these Proceedings—as well as various Observations, made at different places, on the then recent Transit of Venus—contains also a Memoir, by Dr. Smith, deducing the Sun’s Parallax from a comparison of the Norriton and some other American Observations of the Transit of Venus, in 1769, with the Greenwich and some other European Observations of the same: And with this paper, its learned writer has incorporated a communication, on the same subject, made to him by Mr. Rittenhouse.

Until about the period at which the latest of these favourite transactions of Mr. Rittenhouse took place—namely, his geometrical employment in ascertaining the Latitude and Longitude of Norriton and Philadelphia, respectively,—he continued to reside on his farm at Norriton. And here he still carried on, with the aid of some apprentices and journey-men, his self-acquired occupation of a Clock and Mathematical Instrument-maker: combining, at intervals, with these mechanical pursuits, an unceasing attention to his philosophical studies and researches; and occasionally employing himself, principally with a view to his health, in some of the occupations of Husbandry. Ever an economist of Time, of which he well knew the inestimable value, none of his hours which could be spared from necessary sleep were suffered to be unemployed. In this rural abode, he enjoyed the comforts of domestic life amidst his little family, consisting only of an amiable wife and two young children. In short, no part of his time was unengaged, or uselessly passed; although he, not unfrequently, felt the solace of friendly calls, and was gratified by visits from persons of science, worth, and distinction.

The writer of these memoirs designed to narrate those circumstances most worthy of notice, in the Life and character of Mr. Rittenhouse, in their chronological order; and this plan will be generally adhered to. Having followed our philosopher in his astronomical and mechanical pursuits, up to the year 1770, it therefore becomes proper to recur to a period of his life some few years earlier, in order to introduce the history of his Orrery,131 before mentioned; a piece of mechanism which is admitted, by all competent judges of its merit, to be one of the greatest of his works.

The Planetarium invented by Mr. George Graham,132—and a model of which was improperly retained by Mr. Rowley, its constructor,—had, long before the appearance of Mr. Rittenhouse’s machine, acquired the name of an Orrery; in compliment to Richard Boyle, Earl of Orrery,133 who merely patronized the construction of one, from the artist Rowley’s pirated model. This complimentary appellation of Mr. Graham’s then newly invented Planetarium is said to have been bestowed upon it by Lord Orrery’s friend, Sir Richard Steele:134 and, the name being thus applied to that machine, all those of the nature of Planetaria, subsequently constructed,—however variant in usefulness or design, from the original one bearing the name of an “Orrery,”—were denominated Orreries.135 In compliance, then, with long established usage, Mr. Rittenhouse modestly called his Planetarian-machine, from the first projection of it, an Orrery; although the entire merit, both of the invention and construction, belonged to himself.136

It is not ascertained, at what time Mr. Rittenhouse first conceived the plan of that extensive, complicated and inestimable Orrery, which he afterwards executed. Probably, he had long thought on the subject, before he publicly announced his design. It is certain, however, that before the beginning of the year 1767, there was some correspondence and some understanding, respecting it, between himself and the Rev. Mr. Barton. It appears in fact, that, prior to that period, Mr. Barton had been fully apprized of his brother-in-law’s desire to carry into effect his meditated design of constructing a complete Orrery, on a plan entirely new; and that some arrangement was previously made, between these gentlemen; by which Mr. Barton undertook to indemnify Mr. Rittenhouse, for such actual expenditures as he should incur in making the machine and his loss of time while employed in the work, not exceeding a stipulated sum; provided he should not be able to dispose of it, when finished, at a price then fixed on. The prudential caution of our young Philosopher (then about thirty-four years of age,) and the public spirit of his friend, grounded on the confidence he had in the artist’s talents and abilities, were alike evinced on this occasion.

The first written communication made by Mr. Rittenhouse to Mr. Barton, on the subject of the Orrery, is contained in a letter under the date of Jan. 28th, 1767: it is in these words:—“I am glad you took the pains to transcribe, and send me, Martin’s Account of Orreries.”137 “Two forms (he says) have principally obtained, the Hemispherical Orrery and the Whole Sphere. But the idea given us by the former, is very unnatural and imperfect. An Orrery, then, adapted to an Armillary Sphere is the only machine that can exhibit a just idea of the true System of the World.”—“But in my opinion,” says Mr. Rittenhouse, “the latter is likewise very unnatural; for, what has a Sphere, consisting of a great number of metaline Circles, to do with the true System of the World? Is there one real, or so much as apparent Circle, in it? (the bodies of the Sun and Planets excepted.) Are they not all merely imaginary lines, contrived for the purpose of calculation? I did not intend to let one of them have a place in my Orrery, except the Zodiac, on which I would have the true latitude and longitude of each planet pointed out by its proper Index.”

“I did not design a Machine, which should give the ignorant in astronomy a just view of the Solar System: but would rather astonish the skilful and curious examiner, by a most accurate correspondence between the situations and motions of our little representatives of the heavenly bodies, and the situations and motions of those bodies, themselves. I would have my Orrery really useful, by making it capable of informing us, truly, of the astronomical phænomena for any particular point of time; which, I do not find that any Orrery yet made, can do.”

“But,” continues Mr. Rittenhouse, “perhaps it may be necessary to comply with the prevailing taste: If so, my plan must be entirely altered;—and this is a matter that must be settled between you and me, before I can proceed. However, I shall send you, in my next, a particular account of my design; such as I would have it, if not limited by the fear of making it too expensive.—A specimen (if I may so call it) of the most curious part of it, though much smaller than that intended for the Orrery, is now in hand, and I hope will soon be finished.”

To this letter Mr. Barton returned the following answer.

“Lancaster, February 21st, 1767.

“Dear Brother,

“I received, a few days ago, yours of the 28th ult.—after it had undergone the torture of some Dutchman’s pocket, which compelled it to force its way through the cover: However, the inside did escape without many fractures; so that I had the pleasure of getting it into my hands in such a condition that I could read it.

“Had I known your distress, at the time you received my letter, I should have sincerely felt for you. I well know the anxiety of an husband, on such occasions, and my heart will ever join in sympathy with him: For you, my feelings would have been doubled, as a husband, as my friend and brother. Glad I am, therefore, that I have no occasion to condole with you, but rather to rejoice; and I most sincerely and affectionately congratulate you, on the escape and recovery of your good girl, and wish you joy of your daughter. I desire to offer my best regards to sister Nelly, for the compliment she intended me, had her child been a boy. Her intention was kind, and I hope to have the continuance of her favourable opinion of me.

“I am much pleased with your remarks on Spherical Orreries, or rather on the circles generally adapted to such Orreries. Mr. Rowning seems to be so much of the same opinion, that I could not deny myself the pleasure of transcribing some part of his account of Orreries, and of an imaginary machine, which he thinks might be made very useful.138 Several of his hints appear to me ingenious, and I hope they will not be unacceptable to you.

“I would have you pursue your Orrery in your own way, without any regard to an ignorant or prevailing taste. All you have to study is truth, and to display the glorious system of Copernicus in a proper manner;—and to make your machine as much an original, as possible. I beg you will not limit yourself in the price. I am now perfectly convinced, that you can dispose of it to advantage; and should be sorry you would lose one hour more in fears or doubts about it. In fact, I have laid such plans for the disposal of it, that I have almost a moral certainty of having a demand for more than one of the kind. I have not time to write you as fully as I could wish, as the transcribing from Rowning has detained me so long, and I am this moment setting out for Caernarvon.

“My letter to the Proprietor 139 is delayed, till I can send him the account of your design, which you are pleased to promise me. You say you have “a specimen” in hand: I should be glad to know what it is.

“I shall not neglect the things you mentioned to me, as I shall always receive a pleasure in serving you.... She joins me in love to father, mother and all friends.—I am, in haste, dear Davy, your very affectionate friend and brother,

“Thomas Barton.

“P. S. Forgive this wretched scrawl—I have not time to examine whether I have committed any errors in copying Mr. Rowning.

“I beg leave to recommend Huygens’, Cotes’, Helsham’s, and Power’s Philosophy to you. You will be much pleased with them.

“I wish you would purchase Bion’s Description of Philosophical and Mathematical Instruments, &c.”

“Mr. David Rittenhouse.”

His next letter to Mr. Barton, covering the promised Account of his Orrery, is dated the 27th of March, 1767: and this, it will be perceived, is very nearly a year before a description of it was communicated to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. In this letter, he says—“Rowning’s opinion of Orreries pleases me more than any thing I had met with before. The idea of his imaginary machine naturally presents itself to persons conversant in Astronomy; but, if actually made, it could not answer the purpose, unless prodigiously large,—which I presume is the reason it has never been done.

“I send you a description of my imaginary machine: the foundation of it is now laid; and I hope that part of it, containing the mechanical Astronomy of the Moon, will be finished some time this spring: then we shall be able to judge, whether my abilities are equal to the undertaking.”

The “Description” here referred to, in Mr. Rittenhouse’s own hand-writing, is new before the writer of these Memoirs; and is thus endorsed by the Rev. Mr. Barton—“Original Description of Mr. Rittenhouse’s Orrery, first communicated to Thomas Barton.”—For the satisfaction of those, who may not have an opportunity of seeing the American Philosophical Society’s Transactions, in which this short account of the Orrery was afterwards published; and, as this original description of it differs somewhat from the printed one, it is presumed that the introduction of the former into this work, will not be unacceptable to the reader.

The impossibility of conveying to the mind of any one, even the most intelligent and skilful, by means of either any delineation upon paper in the nature of a diagram, or by words, an adequate idea of so complex and multiform a machine as the one now about to be described, will instantly be conceived. Indeed no description, alone, can render the nature of its construction, and the many curious and useful purposes it is capable of answering, perfectly intelligible to the most scientific Astronomer. Mr. Rittenhouse’s very concise description of his Orrery will, therefore, necessarily be found defective: it is thus worded by himself.

“DESCRIPTION OF A NEW ORRERY.

“This Machine is intended to have three faces, standing perpendicular to the horizon: that in the front to be four feet square, made of sheet-brass, curiously polished, silvered, and painted in proper places, and otherwise ornamented. From the centre arises an axis, to support a gilded brass ball, intended to represent the Sun. Round this ball move others, made of brass or ivory, to represent the Planets: They are to move in elliptical orbits, having the central ball in one focus; and their motions to be sometimes swifter, and sometimes slower, as nearly according to the true law of an equable description of areas as is possible, without too great a complication of wheel-work. The orbit of each Planet is likewise to be properly inclined to those of the others; and their Aphelia and Nodes justly placed; and their velocities so accurately adjusted, as not to differ sensibly from the tables of Astronomy in some thousands of years.

“For the greater beauty of the instrument, the balls representing the planets are to be of a considerable bigness; but so contrived, that they may be taken off at pleasure, and others, much smaller, and fitter for some purposes, put in their places.

“When the Machine is put in motion, by the turning of a winch, there are three indexes which point out the hour of the day, the day of the month, and the year (according to the Julian account,) answering to that situation of the heavenly bodies which is then represented; and so continually, for a period of 5000 years, either forward or backward.

“In order to know the true situation of a Planet at any particular time, the small set of balls are to be put each on its respective axis; then the winch to be turned round until each index points to the given time. Then a small telescope, made for the purpose, is to be applied to the central ball; and directing it to the planet, its longitude and inclination will be seen on a large brass circle, silvered, and properly graduated, representing the zodiac, and having a motion of one degree in seventy-two years, agreeable to the precession of the equinoxes. So, likewise, by applying the telescope to the ball representing the earth, and directing it to any planet,—then will both the longitude and latitude of that planet be pointed out (by an index and graduated circle,) as seen from the earth.

“The two lesser faces are four feet in height, and two feet three inches in breadth. One of them will exhibit all the appearances of Jupiter and his Satellites—their eclipses, transits, and inclinations; likewise, all the appearances of Saturn, with his ring and satellites. And the other will represent all the phænomena of the moon, particularly, the exact time, quantity, and duration of her eclipses—and those of the sun, occasioned by her interposition; with a most curious contrivance for exhibiting the appearance of a solar eclipse, at any particular place on the earth: likewise, the true place of the moon in the signs, with her latitude, and the place of her apoge in the nodes; the sun’s declination, equation of time &c. It must be understood, that all these motions are to correspond exactly, with the celestial motions; and not to differ several degrees from the truth, in a few revolutions, as is common in Orreries.

“If it shall be thought proper, the whole is to be adapted to, and kept in motion by, a strong pendulum-clock; nevertheless, at liberty to be turned by the winch, and adjusted to any time, past or future.”

“N. B. The diurnal motions of such planets as have been discovered to revolve on their own axes, are likewise to be properly represented; both with regard to the Times, and the situation of their Poles.”

The foregoing is a literal copy of the original manuscript; and such readers of this article as may think proper to compare it with the printed description of Mr. Rittenhouse’s Orrery, communicated to the American Philosophical Society by Dr. Smith, on the 21st of March 1768, and contained in the first volume of that Society’s Transactions, will find some (though, on the whole, not very essential) differences, in the two descriptions. The concluding paragraph, indeed,—designated, in each, by a N. B.—is materially variant in the two: and it appears, by its having been announced in the published (and later) account of this machine, that, “the clock part of it may be contrived to play a great variety of Music,” (a suggestion wholly omitted in Mr. Rittenhouse’s original communication, made to the Rev. Mr. Barton,) that the philosophic Artist had been afterwards induced, in one particular at least, “to comply with the prevailing taste.”140 But this may be readily accounted for: our artist had previously made some extremely curious and beautiful Time-pieces, to each of which was attached the mechanism of a Musical Clock, in addition to a limited Planetarium, in miniature. These were in the hands of gentlemen of respectability and taste:141 and they were much and generally admired, as well for the great ingenuity displayed by the constructor, in these combined and pleasing operations of his machinery, as for the superior accuracy and beauty of the workmanship; qualities eminently conspicuous in all his mechanical productions.

It appears, that when Mr. Rittenhouse sent the foregoing description of his projected Orrery to Mr. Barton—that is to say, on the 27th of March, 1767 142—the “foundation” of it was “laid.” But, notwithstanding his earnest wishes prompted him to the utmost diligence, in his exertions to finish it, many circumstances concurred to retard its completion. The magnitude of the undertaking—the multiplicity of the work—and, perhaps, the difficulty of sometimes readily procuring, even from Philadelphia, the necessary materials,—all conspired, to prevent as early a completion of the machinery as he had anticipated: and, added to these causes of unavoidable delay, was the yet unabandoned pursuit of his professional business.

The Orrery was, nevertheless, then his favourite object. On the 18th of June, 1767, he wrote to Mr. Barton, thus—“I hope you will persuade your Pequea friends to stay for the clocks, till harvest is over; and then, I think, I may venture to promise them, for ready money: but, at this time, one part of the Orrery is in such forwardness, that I am not willing to lay it by till it is done. I hope it will far exceed the description I gave you of it. To-morrow morning I am to set off for Reading, at the request of the Commissioners of Berks county, who wrote to me about their town-clock. They had employed a... to make it, who, it seems, is not able to go through with it: if I should undertake to finish it, this will likewise retard the great work.”

Amidst the more important philosophical pursuits which engaged Mr. Rittenhouse’s attention before his removal to Philadelphia, as well as after he fixed his residence in that city, he now and then relaxed the energy of his mind from its employment in laborious investigations, by bestowing a portion of his time on minor objects in physical science; and indeed, sometimes, even on little matters of ingenuity, curiosity and amusement. As instances of this, he addressed to the Rev. Mr. Barton the letter under the date of the 20th of July, 1768, which will be found in the Appendix; and also another, dated the 4th of February, 1770, to which there is the following postscript:

“I have,” says he, “seen a little curiosity, with which you would be pleased; I mean the glass described by Dr. Franklin, wherein water may be kept in a boiling state, by the heat of the hand alone, and that for hours together. The first time I shall be in Lancaster, where I hope to be next June, I expect to prevail on you to accompany me to the Glass-house,143 where we may have some of them made, as well as some other things I want.”—A description of this instrument, then usually called Dr. Franklin’s Pulse-Glass,144 by means of which water may be made to boil, in vacuo, by the heat of the human hand, was communicated by Mr. Rittenhouse to Mr. Barton in a subsequent letter.

Even Voltaire, who had, himself, been instrumental in corrupting the mind of the great Frederick of Prussia, and, thus, of furnishing the means for the subsequent overthrow of that once powerful monarchy; even this infidel could not help exclaiming, in a moment of sober reflection, “Who could have believed, that geometricians have been wild enough to imagine, that, in the exaltation of the soul, we may possess the gift of divination; yet more than one philosopher took it into their heads, by the example of Descartes, to put themselves into God’s place, and create a world with a word! But now, all these philosophical follies are reproved by the wise; and even their fantastical edifices, overthrown by reason, have left in their ruins, materials, of which reason has made some use.—A like extravagance has infected the moral world: there have been some understandings so blind as to undermine the very foundation of society, at the time they thought to reform it. They have been mad enough to maintain that the distinctions of meum & tuum are criminal, and that one ought not to enjoy the fruits of one’s own labour; that not only all mankind are upon a level, but that they have perverted the order of nature, in forming societies; that men are born to be separated from each other, like wild beasts; and that amphibious animals, with bees and ants, confound the eternal laws, by living in common! These impertinences, worthy of an hospital of madmen,” continues Mr. de Voltaire, sarcastically, “have been for some time in fashion, just as it is customary to lead apes to dance, at fairs.” [See The Age of Louis XV. ch. 39.]

But although it cannot be doubted; that the society of Voltaire contributed to support, if not to generate, the deistical principles of Frederick II. other foreigners, whom he had patronized and cherished in his own capital, and with whom he associated, most of them Frenchmen, did much towards debauching his mind, in regard to religion. The Prince de Ligne, a distinguished Austrian field-marshal, has verified this remark. In a letter written to the king of Poland, in the year 1785, the prince narrates some particulars of a conversation which took place between the Prussian monarch and himself, in the year 1770; and observes, that the king expressed his libertine sentiments too freely, even making a boast of his irreligion. The prince de Ligne, on this occasion, charges freethinkers with a want of candour, in promulgating opinions fraught with infidelity, while many of them heartily dread the consequences of what they affect to renounce. But this, he remarks, is not their only fault: “they are also apt,” says he, “to make a parade of free-thinking; which betrays, at least, a want of taste. It was,” continues the prince, “from having been surrounded by men of bad taste, such as D’Argens, Maupertuis, La Beaumelle, La Mettrie, the Abbé de Brades, and some clumsy infidels of his academy, that the king had contracted the habit of abusing religion, and talking of dogmas, Spinozism, the court of Rome, &c.”

Letters and Reflexions of the Prince de Ligne.

The following epitaph, in classical Latin, is inscribed on the noble monument erected to the memory of Newton, in the Abbey Church of Westminster:

H. S. E.

Isaacus Newton, Eques Auratus,

Qui vi animi prope divinâ

Planetarum motus, figuras,

Cometarum semitas, Oceanique æstus,

Sua mathesi facem præferente,

Primus demonstravit.

Radiorum lucis dissimilitudines,

Colorumque inde nascentium proprietates

Quas nemo antea vel suspicatus erat, prevestigavit,

Naturæ, Antiquitatis, S. Scripturæ,

Sedulus, sagax, fidus interpres,

Dei Opt. Max. majestatem philosophiâ asseruit,

Evangelii simplicitatem moribus expressit,

Sibi gratulentur mortales, tale tantumque exstitisse,

Humani Generis Decus.

Natus XXV. Decemb. MDCXLII. Obiit XX. Mart.

MDCCXXVI.

Cic. de Naturâ Deorum.

“Reason, tho’ taught by sense to range on high,
To trace the stars and measure all the sky;
Tho’ fancy, memory, foresight fill her train,
And o’er the beast he lifts the pride of man;
Yet, still to matter, form and space confin’d,
Or moral truths or laws that rule mankind,
Could ne’er, unaided, pierce the mental gloom,
Explore new scenes beyond the closing tomb,
Reach with immortal hope the blest abode,
Or raise one thought of spirit or of God.”
Vision of Columbus, book VIII.

New Edinb. Encyclop. tit. Astronomy.

“Ought we,” he asks, “to consider as of no importance the advantage of being freed from the misfortunes of ignorance? Is it possible to observe, without a feeling of compassion and even of shame, the stupidity of those, who formerly believed, that by making a great vociferation, during an eclipse of the Moon, they furnished relief to the sufferings of that (imagined) goddess; or, that these eclipses were produced by enchantment?”

“Cum frustra resonant æra auxiliaria Lunæ.”
Met. iv. 333.

Reyas, in the dedication of his Commentaries on the Planisphere to the Emperor Charles V. mentions a curious historical fact, in illustration of the effects of that superstition, derived from ignorance, which astronomy has banished from the civilized world. It is thus related by Lalande:—“Christopher Columbus, when commanding the army which Ferdinand, king of Spain, had sent to Jamaica, some short time after the discovery of that island, experienced so great a scarcity of provisions, that no hope remained of saving his army, which he expected to be soon at the mercy of the savages. An approaching eclipse of the moon furnished this able man with the means of extricating himself from his embarrassment: he let the chief of the savages know, that if they should not, in a few hours, send him all he asked for, he would oppress them with the greatest calamities; and that he would begin by depriving the moon of her light. At first, they contemned his menaces; but, when they saw that the moon began, in reality, to disappear, they were seized with terror; they carried all they had to the general, and came themselves to implore forgiveness.”

Comets were formerly, even in civilized nations, another great cause of consternation among the people; and one, also, which a knowledge of astronomy has at length divested of its terrors, by removing the source of those superstitious errors, a grossly mistaken notion of the nature of those phænomena. “We are sorry to find,” says Lalande, “such strange prejudices, not only in Homer [Iliad iv. 75.] but even in the most beautiful poem of the sixteenth century; whereby means are furnished of perpetuating our errors—

“Qual con le chiome sanguinose orrende
Splender Cometa suol per l’aria adusta,
Che i regni muta e i feri morbi adduce,
E ai purpurei tiranni infausta luce.”
Tasso’s Jerus. del.

Which Mr. Hoole has thus translated—

“As, shaking terrors from his blazing hair,
A sanguine Comet gleams through dusky air,
To ruin states, and dire diseases spread,
And baleful light on purpled tyrants shed.”

Further, the progress of genuine astronomy has almost wholly dissipated, in our day, the gross delusions of astrology, with the mischievous portents of its infatuated judicial interpreters; follies engendered by ignorance, which is, ever, the prolific parent of prejudice, of superstition, and of their numerous concomitant evils.

A letter from Andrew Ellicott, Esq. to Mr. Robert Patterson, dated the 2d of April 1795, and published in the fourth volume of the American Philosophical Society’s Transactions, contains sundry observations of the immersions of the satellites of Jupiter, made at Wilmington in the state of Delaware, by Messrs. Rittenhouse, J. Page, Lukens and Andrews, respectively, on divers days from the 1st to the 23d of August (both included,) in the year 1784; together with those observed at the Western Observatory, by Messrs. Ellicott, Ewing, Madison, &c. on divers days from the 17th of July to the 19th of August (both included,) in the same year: also, of the emersions of those satellites, by the same Eastern Observers, from the 29th of August to the 19th of September (both included,) and by the same Western Observers, from the 27th of August, up to the 19th of September, both included; all in the year 1784. These observations were made,

“Le Trident de Neptune est le Sceptre du Mond.”27a

when those able geometricians and astronomers were employed in ascertaining the Western Boundary of Pennsylvania, by determining the length of five degrees of longitude, West, from a given point on the river Delaware.

W. B.

A poetic translation into our own language, of the lines above quoted, which exhibit “the godlike image,” thus formed, after its being animated by the stolen fire of Prometheus, is comprehended in the italicised lines of the following passage, extracted from Mr. Dryden’s versification of the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; in which the English poet has well preserved the beauty, the force, and the sublimity of the thought, so finely expressed in the original:—

“A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design’d
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form’d, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heav’nly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire;
Or earth, but now divided from the sky,
And pliant still, retain’d th’ ætherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper’d into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast:
Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft, and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.”

Mr. Smart, in the poem before quoted, has prettily expressed this idea, in the following lines:—

“Vain were th’ attempt, and impious, to trace
Thro’ all his works th’ Artificer Divine—
And tho’ no shining sun, nor twinkling star,
Bedeck’d the crimson curtains of the sky;
Tho’ neither vegetable, beast, nor bird,
Were extant on the surface of this ball,
Nor lurking gem beneath; tho’ the great sea
Slept in profound stagnation, and the air
Had left no thunder to pronounce its Maker;
Yet Man at home, within himself, might find
The Deity immense; and, in that frame
So fearfully, so wonderfully made,
See and adore his Providence and Pow’r.”

“With thee, serene Philosophy! with thee,
And thy bright garland, let me crown my song!
Effusive source of evidence, and truth!
A lustre shedding o’er th’ ennobled mind,
Stronger than summer-noon; and pure as that,
Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul,
New to the dawning of celestial day.
Hence through her nourish’d pow’rs, enlarged by thee,
She springs aloft, with elevated pride,
Above the tangling mass of low desires,
That bind the fluttering crowd; and angel-wing’d,
The heights of science and of virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear; with nature round,
Or in the starry regions, or th’ abyss,
To reason’s or to fancy’s eye display’d:
The First up-tracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects to Him,
The world producing essence, who alone
Possesses being; while the Last receives
The whole magnificence of heaven and earth,
And every beauty, delicate or bold,
Obvious or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.”
Summer, l. 1729 and seq.

Mr. Dryden has thus translated the original into English verse:—

“Pleas’d, as I am, to walk along the sphere
Of shining stars, and travel with the year;
To leave the heavy earth, and scale the height
Of Atlas, who supports the heavenly weight.”

42.

—-—-—“Amid the radiant orbs
That mere than deck, that animate the sky,
The life-infusing suns of other worlds,
Lo! from the dread immensity of space
Returning with accelerated course,
The rushing Comet to the sun descends;
And, as he sinks below the shading earth,
With awful train projected o’er the heavens,
The guilty nations tremble. But, above
Those superstitious horrors that enslave
The fond sequacious herd, to mystic faith
And blind amazement prone, th’ enlighten’d few,
Whose godlike minds Philosophy exalts,
The glorious stranger hail. They feel a joy
Divinely great; they in their powers exult;
That wond’rous force of thought, which mounting spurns
This dusky spot, and measures all the sky;
While, from his far excursions through the wilds
Of barren ether, faithful to his time,
They see the blazing wonder rise anew,
In seeming terror clad, but kindly bent
To work the will of all-sustaining love:
From his huge vapoury train perhaps to shake
Renewing moisture on the numerous orbs,
Through which his long elipsis winds; perhaps
To lend new fuel to declining suns,
To light up worlds, and feed th’ eternal fire.”

Thomson’s Summer, l. 1702 and seq.

The Countess of Carlisle, a woman whose literary attainments, as well as virtues and accomplishments, do honour to her sex and station, in her Letters, under the signature of Cornelia, thus recommends an attention to the study of astronomy, to the young ladies to whom her letters are addressed. “Attain a competent knowledge of the globe on which you live, that your apprehension of Infinite Wisdom may be enlarged; which it will be in a much higher degree, if you take care to acquire a general idea of the structure of the universe. It is not expected you should become adepts in astronomy; but a knowledge of its leading principles you may, and ought to obtain.”—Her ladyship then refers her young female correspondents to the Plurality of Worlds of Fontenelle, in order that they might acquire a knowledge of the planetary orbs; pleasantly recommending this author as a proper person, in the capacity of “a gentleman usher,” to “introduce” them to an “acquaintance” with “that brilliant assembly.”

Lady Carlisle’s Letters, lett. 8th.

The following resolutions passed by them, after the delivery of the oration, will evince the high sense they entertained of the merit of this performance; viz.

“Philosophical Hall, Dec. 17, 1796.—In Meeting of the American Philosophical Society,

“Resolved, unanimously, That the thanks of this society be presented to Dr. Benjamin Rush, for the eloquent, learned, comprehensive, and just Eulogium, which he has this day pronounced, upon the character of our late respected President, Dr. David Rittenhouse.

“Resolved, unanimously, That Dr. Rush be requested to furnish the society with a copy of the Eulogium, to be published under their direction.

“An extract from the minutes:—Samuel Magaw, Robert Patterson, W. Barton, John Bleakley, Secretaries.”

It may not be thought superfluous, to add, that Dr. Rush well knew Mr. Rittenhouse. A personal friendship of an early date subsisted between them: it probably originated when the latter established his residence in Philadelphia, about six and twenty years before his death. In the summer of 1772, Mr. Rittenhouse (in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Barton) expressed his friendly estimation of the doctor in these few words—“The esteem I have for Dr. Rush is such, that his friendship for Mr. —— would, alone, give me a very good opinion of that gentleman.”

Paper, made from linen rags (for that made from cotton, silk, and some other substances, was of a much elder date,) is said to have been originally introduced into Germany from Valencia and Catalonia, in Spain, as early as the year 1312, and to have appeared in England eight or ten years afterwards. But the first paper-mill in Great Britain was erected at Dartford in Kent, by Mr. Speelman, a German, jeweller to queen Elizabeth, in the year 1558: and it was not until more than a century after, that any other paper than of an inferior quality was manufactured in England. Little besides brown paper was made there, prior to the revolution in 1688: yet, soon after that period, the English were enabled to supply themselves with much the greater part of the various kinds of paper used in their country, from their own mills; and the perfection to which the manufacture of this important article has since been carried, not only in England, but in France, Italy and Germany, has greatly diminished the consumption of Dutch paper.

It is a fact worthy of notice, that the establishment of paper-mills in Pennsylvania, by the Rittenhouses, was nearly co-eval with the general introduction of the manufactory of white paper in the mother country. This appears from the following circumstance:—There is now before the writer of these memoirs a paper in the hand-writing of the celebrated William Penn, and subscribed with his name, certifying that “William Rittinghousen and Claus” (Nicholas) “his son,” then “part owners of the paper-mill near Germantown,” had recently sustained a very great loss by a violent and sudden flood, which carried away the said mill, with a considerable quantity of paper, materials and tools, with other things therein, whereby they were reduced to great distress; and, therefore, recommending to such persons as should be disposed to lend them aid, to give the sufferers “relief and encouragement, in their needful and commendable employment,” as they were “desirous to set up the paper-mill again.”—This certificate is without date: but Mr. Penn was twice in Pennsylvania. He first arrived in the year 1682, and returned to England in 1684; his second arrival was in 1699, and he finally left the province in 1701. It was probably during the latter period of his residence in his proprietary-dominion, though, perhaps, in the first, that the Germantown paper-mills were destroyed.

The William Rittinghousen (so Mr. Penn writes the name) here mentioned, is supposed to be the same named in the text, and to have been the great-grandfather of our astronomer. In Mr. Penn’s certificate he is called an old man, and is stated to have then been “decrepid.”

In order to shew the present importance of that article, as a manufacture, in the United States, and which was first fabricated in this country by the Rittenhouses, the reader is presented with the following view of the quantity of paper, of various descriptions, annually made at one hundred and eighty-five paper-mills, within the United States; taken from the latest information furnished on this subject.

	Tons.	Reams.	Value.
For Newspapers,59a	500	50,000	$150,000
Books,	630	70,000	245,000
Writing,	650	111,000	333,000
Wrapping,	800	100,000	83,000
	—-—	—-—-—	—-—-—
	2580	331,000	811,000

“WILLIAM PENN,

A Man of Principles truly humane;

An Advocate for

Religion and Liberty;

Possessing a noble Spirit,

That exerted itself

For the Good of Mankind; was

The great and worthy Founder of

Pennsylvania.

To its Inhabitants, by Charter,

He granted and confirmed

Many singular Privileges and Immunities,

Civil and Religious,

Which he continually studied

To preserve and defend for them;

Nobly declaring,

That they had not followed him so far,

To lose a single tittle

Of the Great Charter,

To which all Englishmen were born.

For these Services,

Great have been the Acknowledgements

Deservedly paid to his Merit;

And his Memory

Is dear to his People,

Who have repeatedly confessed,

That,

Next to Divine Providence,

Their Happiness, Prosperity, and Increase

Are owing

To his wise Conduct and singular Goodness;

Which deserve ever to be remembered

With

Gratitude and Affection,

Pennsylvanians.”

For the materials of which the foregoing Eulogy is composed, its author 63a has referred his readers to the Minutes of Assembly, for the years 1719 and 1725, to those from the year 1730 to 1740, both inclusive, excepting only 1736, 1737 and 1739; also, for 1745, 1755 and 1756; to other proceedings of the assembly, in the years 1730 and 1738; and to their Address to Governor John Penn, in 1764.

A very respectable Memorial of another nature, in honour of the justly celebrated Penn, decorates the edifice of a noble public institution in the capital of his former domain; an institution devoted to the purposes of charity, humanity and benevolence. It is a finely executed metallic statue, in bronze, of that great man; representing him in his appropriate attire, and holding in his right hand The Charter of Privileges.63b The statue stands on an elegant pedestal of marble, in an handsome area on the south front of the Pennsylvania Hospital: and the four sides of the pedestal contain these modest inscriptions; viz.

“William Penn—Born, 1644—Died, 1718.”

(And underneath, the Family-Arms, with his Motto; viz.)

“Mercy—Justice.”

“Pennsylvania Granted by Charles II. to William Penn,

1681.”

“The Proprietary arrived in 1682; made a just and amicable arrangement with the Natives, for the purchase of their Lands; and went back to England in 1684.”

“Returned to Pennsylvania, 1699; and finally withdrew to his Paternal Estate, 1701.”

The public in general, with the Pennsylvania Hospital more particularly, are indebted for this Memorial of true Greatness, to the munificence of a Grandson of the Founder of the extensive Dominion that bears his name; John Penn, of Stoke-Poges in Buckinghamshire, Esquire; by whom the statue was presented, in the year 1804.

While, therefore, the reader contemplates the celebrated Rittenhouse, such as he was in his maturer years; and then takes a retrospective view of the embryo-philosopher in the period of his youth, directing the plough on his father’s freehold; let it be recollected, that the sovereigns of a mighty empire, in the Eastern world, occasionally guide this truly important machine with their own hands, in honour of agriculture: let him recal to his mind, that, in the proudest days of the Roman republic, consuls, dictators, senators, and generals, were not unfrequently called forth from the actual occupancy of this implement of husbandry, by the voice of their country; and, seizing either the civil or the military helm of its government, with hands indurated by the toils of the peaceful field, have by the wisdom of their counsel, or by their valour, supported the tottering fabric of the state and saved the commonwealth: let them remember, in fine, that—

“In ancient times, the sacred plough employ’d
The kings and awful fathers of mankind;”71a

and that Washington, himself, the pride and boast of his age as well as country, disdained not to engage himself, personally, in agricultural pursuits.

It is not ascertained at what age Rittenhouse obtained access to his uncle Williams’s little collection of books and papers; though it was, probably, before his twelfth year. But it is to be observed, that at the early age of twelve, Maclaurin had been a year at the University of Glasgow, where he was placed under the care of one of the most eminent and learned professors of the age; while Rittenhouse, for some years after that period of life, had his time occupied in agricultural pursuits, and was almost entirely uneducated.

One particular in which similar merit attaches itself to these two distinguished philosophers, is, that all their more serious studies were directed towards objects of general utility.

Having introduced the name of Maclaurin more than once into these Memoirs, the author of them cannot refrain from presenting to his readers the following epitaph upon that great mathematician. It is attributed to the late Dr. Johnson: the delicacy and chasteness of the sentiment, as well as the classical purity of the language, certainly render it a specimen of this species of composition worthy of the pen of that justly-admired writer.—

H. L. P. E.

Non ut nomine paterno consulat;

Nam tali auxilio nil eget;

Sed, ut in hoc infelici campo,

Ubi luctus regnant et pavor,

Mortalibus prorsus non absit solatium:

Hujus enim scripta evolve,

Mentemque tantarum rerum capacem,

Corpori caduco superstitem crede.

The writer of the Adversaria, in a respectable periodical publication,75a observes, that “it would not be easy to do justice to this elegant and nervous sentence, in English.” But, as he has given a very good prose translation of it into our language, the subjoined versification of this was attempted by a young lady, at the request of the writer of these memoirs:—

Not to perpetuate his father’s praise,
For no such aid his lofty fame requir’d,
Did filial piety the marble raise;
But other thoughts the friendly deed inspir’d.

Here, in this tearful vale, where sorrow dwells
And trembling mortals own the reign of fear,
At his command, the sculptur’d tablet tells,
Where hope exists, to dry the wand’rer’s tear.

For, read his works, O man! and then believe,
The mind that grasp’d at systems so sublime,
Beyond the mortal part must ever live,
And bloom, in sacred heav’n’s ethereal clime.

Cowper’s Tirocinium.

The celebrated Benjamin Franklin too, in the account of his Life written by himself, informs us, that the Pilgrim’s Progress (which Franklin there, inadvertently, calls “Bunyan’s Voyages,”) was a favourite book of his, in his earlier years. “I have since learned,” says the Doctor, “that it has been translated into almost all the languages of Europe; and, next to the Bible, I am persuaded, it is one of the books which has had the greatest spread.”

Notes

1. Hence, in conformity to this sentiment, Mr. Pope says, when animadverting on the insufficiency of talents, alone, for acquiring an honourable fame and meriting a character truly great,—
“If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin’d,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind;
Or, ravish’d with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell damn’d to everlasting fame.”
[Essay on Man.]

2. The miserable consequences which have resulted to the civilized world, from the mode of reasoning abstractly, and from the mere synthetical plan of philosophising, are too apparent to need much comment. Even some geometricians of great name have been seduced, by such means, into monstrous absurdities in physics; and into the maintenance of doctrines, alike subversive of religion and morals, as destructive of the foundations of civil society. Such were Descartes, Leibnitz and Spinoza, of the seventeenth century: and such have been, and even now are, too many of that class of modern philosophers, as well in this country as on the continent of Europe,—whose metaphysical notions of religion and government, (although some of them may, perhaps, be pretty correct on the subject of physics, alone,) have been the means of inundating the world with scepticism; and, after overturning regular, orderly, and peaceable states, of establishing despotism and misery on the ruins of rational government, in many of the fairest portions of the old world.

3. However Cæsar may be admired as an accomplished gentleman and scholar,—or even as a great and gallant soldier,—he ought ever to be reprobated as an usurper and a tyrant.—Dr. Adam Ferguson remarks, that “Julius Cæsar possessed the talent of influencing, of gaining, and employing men to his purpose, beyond any other person that is known in the history of the world: but it is surely not for the good of mankind,” continues this able writer, “that he should be admired in other respects. To admire even his clemency, is to mistake for it policy and cunning.” [See Ferguson’s Hist. of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic, vol. 5. ch. 36.]
Indeed our admiration of the great military talents of such a man as Cæsar, may carry us too far. Mr. Hume, in his History of England (ch. 47.) very justly observes—that “The unhappy prepossession which men commonly entertain in favour of ambition, courage, enterprise, and other warlike virtues, engages generous natures,—who always love fame,—into such pursuits as destroy their own peace, and that of the rest of mankind.”

4. Mr. Fontenelle in his Eloge on Sir Isaac Newton (published by the Royal Academy of Sciences, at Paris,) mentions particularly the great honours that were paid him, by his countrymen, as well during his life as after his decease. “The English,” says he, “are not apt to pay the less regard to great abilities, for being of their native growth; but instead of endeavouring to lessen them by injurious reflexions, or approving the envy which attacks them, they all join together in striving to advocate them,”—“They are sensible that a great genius must reflect honour upon the state; and whoever is able to procure it to their country, is upon that account infinitely dear to them.”—“Tacitus,” says he, “who has reproached the Romans with their extreme indifference towards the great men of their own nation, would have given the English quite a different character.”—And, after describing the almost princely magnificence, in the manner of Newton’s interment in Westminster Abbey, Mr. Fontenelle remarks, that we must almost go back to the ancient Greeks, if we would find a like instance of so great a veneration paid to learning.

5. Aristotle is supposed, by some, to have imbibed the best and most rational of his notions from his master Plato; to whom, notwithstanding, he seems to have been greatly inferior as a moral philosopher.
His opinions respecting government, abound in good sense. As a general outline of his sentiments on this subject, it may serve to mention, that he distinguished civil government into two kinds; one, in which the general welfare is the great object; the other, in which this is not at all considered.5a In the first class, he places the limited monarchy—the aristocratical form of government—and the republic, properly so called. In the second, he comprehends tyranny—oligarchy—and democracy; considering these as corruptions of the three first. Limited monarchy, he alleges, degenerates into despotism, when the sovereign assumes to himself the exercise of the entire authority of the state, refusing to submit his power to any controul;5b the aristocracy sinks into an oligarchy, when the supreme power is no longer possessed by a reasonable proportion of virtuous men,—but by a small number of rulers, whose wealth alone constitutes their claim to authority; and the republican government is debased into a democracy, when the poorest class of the people have too great an influence in the public deliberations.5c
In Physics, Aristotle scarcely deserves the name of a Philosopher.—As to his metaphysical opinions, in the common acceptation of the term,—it is impossible to ascertain, with certainty, what they really were. It was not until eighteen centuries after his death, that his philosophy—such as it was then promulgated, anew—began to be generally known and studied. After the sacking of Constantinople by the Turks, in the year 1453, some fugitive Greeks, who had escaped the fury of the Ottoman arms, brought from that city into the west of Europe many of the writings of the Stagyritish philosopher: But, although some of his treatises were previously known, they were such as had passed through the hands of the Arabs, in translations into their tongue; done by men who, it may be fairly presumed, very imperfectly understood the author’s language; consequently not capable, even if they were disposed, to do justice to the sense of the original. Subsequent translations of those writings, from the Arabic, probably occasioned, in the same way, further departures from the meaning of the original Greek. Thus varying, as may be supposed, from the opinions taught by Aristotle himself,—the philosophy of the schoolmen, engrafted upon his systems, was neither entirely that of the Stagyrite, nor altogether different. His writings, nevertheless, gave birth to what is termed the Scholastic Philosophy,—“that motley offspring of error and ingenuity,” as it is called by Mr. Mallet.5d “To trace at length,” says this writer, “the rise, progress, and variations of this philosophy, would be an undertaking not only curious, but instructive; as it would unfold to us all the mazes in which the force, the subtlety, the extravagance of human wit, can lose themselves: till not only profane learning, but Divinity itself, was at last, by the refined frenzy of those who taught both, subtilized into mere notion and air.”5e

5a. Aristot. de Rep.—lib, 3. cap. 6.

5b. Id. Rhet.—lib. 1. cap. 8.

5c. Id. de Rep.—lib. 3. cap. 7.

5d. In his Life of Lord Chancellor Bacon.

5e. Ibid.

6. Baron Bielfeld (in his Elements of Universal Erudition) observes, that the fondness for Aristotle’s reveries began about the twelfth century. It was then, that the scholastic philosophy was formed. This was partly borrowed from the writings of the Arabs, who were always attached to the theories of Aristotle: they were initiated into a subtile, ambiguous, abstract and capricious mode of reasoning; by which they never hit the truth, but constantly went on the one side, or beyond the truth. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, continues the learned Baron, this absurd system arrived to a great height. It became a mere jargon, a confused heap of unintelligible ideas.
The celebrated Mr. Boyle, the great successor of Lord Verulam (St. Albans) in experimental philosophy, is said to have declared against the Philosophy of Aristotle, as having in it more of words than things; promising much and performing little; and giving the Inventions of Men for indubitable proofs, instead of building upon observation and experiment. He was so zealous for, and so scrupulous about, this true method of learning by experiment, that, though the Cartesian philosophy then made a great noise in the world, yet he would never be persuaded to read the works of Descartes; for fear he should be amused, and led away, by plausible accounts of things founded on conjecture, and merely hypothetical. (See Art. Boyle, in the New and General Biography.)—This great and excellent man was born the same year in which Bacon, Viscount St. Albans, died.
Epicurus, the disciple of Democritus, and follower of the Philosophy of Aristotle, was engaged, although unsuccessfully enough, in the labyrinth of Metaphysics, as well as in Physics. He adopted the system of Atoms, which Democritus first propagated; and hence appears to be derived Descartes’s equally preposterous doctrine of the Plenum and of Vortices.

7. “Nulla gens tam fera, quæ non sciat Deum habendum esse, quamvis ignoret qualem habere deceat.”

8. While Plato followed the morals of Socrates, he cultivated the metaphysical opinions of Pythagoras. He is said to have founded his physics on the notions of Heraclitus: it may be presumed, nevertheless, that he derived that branch of his system from a better source.

10. “An inordinate desire to explain and generalise, without facts and observations, led the ancient philosophers to the most absurd and extravagant notions; though, in a few cases, they have displayed the most wonderful ingenuity, and sagaciously anticipated the discoveries of modern times.”

11. “If the petty motions of us mortals afford arguments for the being of a God, much more may those greater motions we see in the world, and the phænomena attending them: I mean, the motions of the planets and heavenly bodies. For these must be put into motion either by one common mighty Mover, acting upon them immediately, or by causes and laws of His appointment; or by their respective movers, who, for reasons to which you can by this time be no stranger,” (referring his reader to preceding arguments), “must depend upon some Superior, that furnished them with the power of doing this. And granting it to be done either of these ways, we can be at no great distance from a demonstration of the existence of a Deity.”—Wollaston’s Rel. of Nat. delineated, sect. v. head 14th.

12. A disciple of Anaximenes, and preceptor to Socrates. He died 428 years B. C. in the seventy-second year of his age.

13. Thales, of Miletus in Ionia, was one of the seven sages of Greece: he was born about six hundred and forty years before the Christian era. After travelling into other countries, he returned to his own, and there devoted himself exclusively to the study of nature. Being the first of the Greeks who made any discoveries in Astronomy, he is said to have astonished his countrymen, by predicting a solar eclipse; and he instructed them, by communicating the knowledge of geometry and astronomy, which he had acquired while in Egypt. He died in the ninety-sixth year of his age,—544 years B. C.

14. Marcus Tullius Cicero—the same that has been already mentioned. He was, himself, not only one of the most learned and eloquent men, but one of the greatest philosophers, of antiquity. This illustrious Roman (whose death occurred forty-three years before the Christian era) firmly believed in the being of a God. He was likewise a decided advocate for the doctrine of the soul’s immortality; concerning which, some fine reasoning will be found in his book on Old Age;—a doctrine, however, by no means confined to Cicero alone, but one maintained by many of the most eminent among the heathen philosophers, in the early ages. Plato appears to have been the first who supported that opinion upon sound and permanent arguments, deduced from truth and established principles.

15. Cicero himself says, “If any one doubt, whether there be a God, I cannot comprehend why the same person may not as well doubt, whether there be a sun or not.” [De Naturâ Deorum, 2. 2.]
It is observed by Dr. Turnbull, in his annotations on Heineccius’s System of Universal Law, that Polybius as well as Cicero, and indeed almost all the ancient philosophers, have acknowledged, that a public sense of Religion is necessary to the well-being and support of civil society: and such a sentiment of Religion is inseparable from a reasonable conception of the being and attributes of the Deity. “Society,” says Dr. Turnbull very truly, “can hardly subsist without it: or, at least, it is the most powerful mean for restraining from vice; and for promoting and upholding those virtues by which society subsists, and without which every thing that is great and comely in society must soon perish and go to ruin.”—“With regard to private persons,” continues this learned writer, “he who does not often employ his mind in reviewing the perfections of the Deity, and in consoling and strengthening his mind by the comfortable and mind-exalting reflexions, to which meditation upon the universal providence of an all-perfect mind, naturally, and as it were, necessarily lead, deprives himself of the greatest joy, the noblest exercise and entertainment, the human mind is capable of; and whatever obligations there may to virtue, he cannot be so firm, steady, and unshaken in his adherence to it, as he, who, being persuaded of the truth just mentioned, is daily drawing virtuous strength and comfort from it.” [See the Annotator’s remark on ch. v. b. i. of Heineccius.]

16. The Greeks derived their knowledge of astronomy from the Egyptians and Chaldeans. According to Plutarch, the sciences began to unfold themselves about the time of Hesiod, the Greek poet, who flourished upwards of nine centuries before the Christian era; but their progress was very slow, until the time of Thales, which was about three centuries later. And although this celebrated philosopher of antiquity rendered himself famous by foretelling an eclipse of the sun, he only predicted the year in which it was to happen. Even this, it is remarked by Mr. Vince (in his invaluable work, entitled, A Complete System of Astronomy,) he was probably enabled to do by the Chaldean Saros, a period of 223 lunations; after which, the eclipses return again nearly in the same order. Philolaus, a disciple of Pythagoras, lived about four hundred and fifty years before Christ, and is said to have taught the true solar system,—placing the sun in the centre, with the earth and all the planets revolving about it; a system which, it is believed, Pythogaras himself had conceived, and was inclined to adopt.
However, Hipparchus, who lived between one hundred and twenty-five and one hundred and sixty years before the Christian era, and whom Mr. Vince styles “the Father of Astronomy,” was the first person that cultivated every part of that science. His discoveries, together with those of Ptolemy, are preserved in the Μεγαλη Σύνταξις, or Great Construction,—Ptolemy’s celebrated work on Astronomy, named by the Arabs the Almagest, and now usually so called.

17. This great philosopher of antiquity, so justly entitled to celebrity for his mathematical works, flourished three hundred years before the Christian era. Care should be taken not to confound him with Euclid of Megara, who lived a century earlier. The latter, as the Abbé Barthelemi observes, being too much familiarized with the writings of Parmenides and the Elean school, had recourse to abstractions; “a method,” says the Abbé, “often dangerous, oftener unintelligible.” Just after, he adds: “The subtleties of metaphysics calling to their aid the quirks of logic, words presently took place of things, and students acquired nothing in the schools but a spirit of acrimony and contradiction.” Travels of the younger Anacharsis, vol. iii. chap. 37.

18. That the sun is at rest, and that the planets revolve round him, is an opinion that appears to have been received of old, by Philolaus, Aristarchus of Samos, and the whole sect of the Pythagoreans. It is probable, as Mr. Rowning 18a observes, that this notion was derived from them, by the Greeks: But the opinion that the sun stood still in the centre, while the whole heavens moved around it, was the prevailing one, until Copernicus, by the establishment of his system, restored the ancient astronomy of the Pythagorean school.

18a. In his Compendious System of Natural Philosophy.

19. Nicholas Copernic (usually latinized, by adding the terminating syllable, us,) that celebrated astronomer, “whose vast genius, assisted by such lights as the remains of antiquity afforded him, explained the true system of the universe, as at present understood,”19a was born at Thorn in Royal Prussia, the 19th of January, 1442. He was alike distinguished for his piety and innocence, as for his extraordinary genius and discoveries. He died in the seventy-seventh year of his age.

19a. Ritt. Orat.

20. This great man was a native of Knudsturp, a province of Scania in Denmark, and born the 18th of December, 1546, of an illustrious family. He was the first, who, by the accuracy and number of his observations, made the way for the revival of astronomy among the moderns; although, “in theory,” as Rittenhouse has expressed it, “he mangled the beautiful system of Copernicus.”20a—Brahé (for this is the family-name) died at the age of fifty-five years.

20a. Ibid.

21. John Kepler, a native of Wiel in the duchy of Wirtemberg, in Germany, became as celebrated for the consequences he drew from the observations of Tycho, as the latter was for the vast mass of astronomical materials he had prepared. This eminent, though somewhat “whimsical”21a astronomer, was born the 27th of December, 1571, and died at the age of fifty-nine years.

21a. Ritt. Orat.

22. “Before his (Bacon’s) time, philosophy was fettered by forms and syllogisms. The logics of Aristotle held the human mind in bondage for nearly two thousand years; a miserable jugglery, which was fitted to render all truth problematical, and which disseminated a thousand errors, but never brought to light one useful piece of knowledge.”—Ld. Woolhousie’s Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Ld. Kames.

23. It is observed by an eminent philosopher of the present day, that “The more the phænomena of the universe are studied, the more distinctly their connexion appears, the more simple their causes, the more magnificent their design, and the more wonderful the wisdom and power of their Author.” (See Elements of Chymical Philosophy, by sir Humphrey Davy, LLD. Sec. R. S.)

24. On looking into Maclaurin’s Account of Sir Isaac Newton’s Philosophical Discoveries, since penning the above, the writer of these Memoirs was much gratified by the perusal of the following passage, in the last chapter of that valuable work; wherein its author treats “Of the Supreme Author and Governor of the Universe, the True and Living God.” The writer is induced to add it in a note, to his own reflections on the same subject, such as he has ventured to offer them in the text; presuming that the authority of so eminent a philosopher as Mr. Maclaurin will give weight to what he has himself advanced; so far, at least, as there may appear to be some coincidence of sentiment on the subject.
“The plain argument for the existence of the Deity, obvious to all and carrying irresistable conviction with it, is from the evident contrivance and fitness of things for one another, which we meet with throughout all parts of the universe. There is no need of nice and subtle reasonings in this matter: a manifest contrivance immediately suggests a contriver. It strikes us like a sensation; and artful reasonings against it may puzzle us, but it is without shaking our belief. No person, for example, that knows the principles of optics, and the structure of the eye, can believe that it was formed without skill in that science; or that the ear was formed, without the knowledge of sounds:”—“All our accounts of nature are full of instances of this kind. The admirable and beautiful order of things, for final causes, exalt our idea of the Contriver: the unity of design shews him to be One. The great motions in the system, performed with the same facility as the least, suggest his Almighty Power; which gave motion to the earth and the celestial bodies, with equal ease as to the minutest particles. The subtilty of the motions and actions in the internal parts of bodies, shews that His influence penetrates the inmost recesses of things, and that He is equally active and present every where. The simplicity of the laws that prevail in the world, the excellent disposition of things, in order to obtain the best ends, and the beauty which adorns the works of nature, far superior to any thing in art, suggest His consummate Wisdom. The usefulness of the whole scheme, so well contrived for the intelligent beings that enjoy it, with the internal disposition and moral structure of those beings themselves, shew His unbounded goodness. These are arguments which are sufficiently open to the views and capacities of the unlearned, while at the same time they acquire new strength and lustre from the discoveries of the learned. The Deity’s acting and interposing in the universe, shew that He governs it, as well as formed it; and the depth of His counsels, even in conducting the material universe, of which a great part surpasses our knowledge, keeps up an inward veneration and awe of this great Being, and disposes us to receive what may be otherwise revealed to us, concerning Him.”

25. Mr. Cotes, in his preface to the second edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia, exposes the folly of those depraved dreamers in philosophy, “the sordid dregs of the most impure part of mankind,” who strive to maintain, that the constitution of the world is not derived from the will of God, but from a certain necessity of nature; that all things are governed by fate, not by Providence; and that matter, by necessity of nature, has existed always and every where, and is infinite and eternal. He then adds:—“We may now, therefore, take a nearer view of nature in her glory, and contemplate her in a most entertaining manner: and withal, more zealously than ever, pay our worship and veneration to the Creator and Lord of the Universe; which is the principal advantage of philosophy. He must be blind who, from the most excellent and most wise structure of the creatures, does not presently see the infinite wisdom and goodness of their Creator: and he must be mad, who will not own those attributes.”

26. “A man would deceive himself,” says Lalande, “in believing he could be a philosopher, without the study of the natural sciences. To be wise, not by weakness, but by principles, it is necessary that, to be able to reflect and think with vigour, we be freed from those prejudices which deceive the judgment, and which oppose themselves to the development of reason and of genius. Pythagoras would not have any disciples, who had not studied Mathematics: over his door was to be read, that “no one was to enter, unless he were a geometrician.”—Morals would be less sure, and less attractive for us, if they were to be founded on ignorance or on error.

27. Mr. Rittenhouse observes, (in his Oration delivered before the American Philosophical Society, in 1775,) that “Galileo not only discovered these moons of Jupiter, but suggested their use in determining the longitude of places on the earth; which has since been so happily put in practice, that Fontenelle does not hesitate to affirm, they are of more use to geography and navigation, than our own moon.”—This great man, one of the first restorers of the true principles of physics, was condemned by, and suffered the penalties of the Inquisition, in 1535, for defending the system of Copernicus! He died in 1542.

27a. “The trident of Neptune is the sceptre of the world.”—This, as Lalande observes, is nearly what Themistocles said at Athens, Pompey at Rome, Cromwell in England, and Richelieu and Colbert in France.

28. Mr. Derham, speaking of the utility resulting from the observation of these phænomena, (in his Astro-Theology,) says—“As to the eclipses, whether of sun or moon, they have their excellent uses. The astronomer applies them to considerable services, in his way, and the geographer makes them no less useful in his: the chronologer is enabled, by them, to amend his accounts of time, even of the most ancient days; and so down through all ages: and the mariner, too, can make them serviceable to his purpose, to discover his longitude, to correct his account at sea, and thereby make himself more secure and safe in the untrodden paths of the deep.”

29. Lucius Cælius Lactantius Firmianus, a Christian writer in the beginning of the fourth century, reasons in a conclusive manner against the heathen mythology, in the inference he draws from the argument, used by the heathens, to prove the heavenly bodies to be divinities. His argument, on this head, will be found towards the conclusion of Mr. Derham’s Astro-Theology, where it is translated from the Latin of that early and eloquent advocate of Christianity (in his Divin. Instit. l. 2. c. 5.) in these words:—
“That argument whereby they” (those idolaters) “conclude the heavenly bodies to be gods, proveth the contrary: for if therefore they think them to be gods, because they have such certain and well-contrived rational courses, they err: for, from hence it appears that they are not gods; because they are not able to wander out of those paths that are prescribed them. Whereas, if they were gods, they would go here and there, and every where, without any restraint, like as animals upon the earth do; whose wills being free, they wander hither and thither, as they list, and go whithersoever their minds carry them.”
Those vast orbs of matter in the universe, which constitute the planets of our system, if even we consider this alone, and each of which is known to have its appropriate motion, must of necessity have had those motions communicated to them, at first, by some Being of infinite power; the perfect order and regularity of their motions render it equally plain, that that Being was also infinite in wisdom; and the uninterrupted continuance of the same regularity of motion, in their respective orbits, demonstrates in like manner, that He who originally imparted their motions to the several planets is, moreover, infinite in duration.
The vis inertiæ of all material substances, a quality inseparably interwoven with their nature, deprives them (considered merely as such) of the power of spontaneous motion; matter is inherently inert: consequently, those great globes of matter, the planets (including the earth,) necessarily derive their motions from a supremely powerful First Cause, as well as from one infinitely intelligent, and everlasting in his Being. Hence, Lactantius well observes, in another place, that “There is, indeed, a power in the stars, of performing their motions; but that is the power of God, who made and governs all things; not of the stars themselves, that are moved.”
The reasoning of Lactantius, on this subject, is more worthy of a philosopher, than that employed by Descartes, in supporting his chimerical notion of vortices; or than that which led Kepler to adopt his scheme, equally unsupported by any rational principles, of a vectorial power produced by emanations of the sun, as primary agents of motion in the solar system. Because these schemes of Descartes and Kepler make it necessary to recur to some ulterior, as well as more adequate and comprehensible cause of motion, in the planets, than either vortices or emanations from the sun: whereas Lactantius resorted, at once, to an intelligent First Cause, capable of producing the effect; without conjuring up inefficient agents, as first movers; which left them still under the necessity of going back to a Creator of their respective causes (but second causes, at best,) of the planetary motions; consequently, the First Cause; and, also, of admitting the existence of Intelligence, as an essential attribute in the nature of that Being.
An edition of the works of Lactantius (who was a native of Fermo in Italy,) was printed at Leipsick, in 1715.

30. Wisdom of Solomon, ch. 13. v. 2.

31. Ibid. ch. 13. v. 3 and 5.

32. Psalm 19. v. 1.

33. In Mr. Smart’s Poetical Essay on the Immensity of the Supreme Being, after a glowing description of some of the admirable works of nature, is this apt, though laconic address to the Atheist:—
“Thou ideot! that asserts, there is no God,
View, and be dumb for ever.”

34. The poet gives a whimsical account of the first formation of man, out of this earth, which is represented as being then new; and, having been recently separated from the high æther, is therefore supposed as yet holding some affinity with heaven, and retaining its seeds. He describes the son of Japetus (Prometheus) moulding a portion of earth, mixed with river-water, into the similitude of those heathen deities, who were said to rule over all things.

35. Man will, unquestionably, by taking an extensive range in the contemplation of nature, proportionably enlarge his intuitive conceptions of the attributes of her Almighty First Cause; of whose transcendently exalted existence, the study of his own being, one of nature’s greatest works, will have taught him the reality: and a due knowledge of himself, alone, will also instruct him in the dependent nature of his condition, and the duties resulting from that state of dependence, in his humble relation to the Supreme being.

36. The same sentiment is beautifully expressed by Thomson, in the following apostrophe:

37. It delights me to soar among the lofty stars; it delights me to leave the earth and this dull habitation, to be wafted upon a cloud, and to stand upon the shoulders of the mighty Atlas.

38. Dr. Francis thus versifies this passage, in our language:—
————“What bounds old ocean’s tides;
What, through the various year, the seasons guides:
Whether the stars, by their own proper force,
Or foreign pow’r, pursue their wand’ring course:
Why shadows darken the pale Queen of Night;
Whence she renews her orb, and spreads her light.”

39. Thus rendered, in English verse, by Mr. Dryden:—
“Ye sacred Muses, with whose beauty fir’d,
My soul is ravish’d, and my brain inspir’d;
Whose priest I am, whose holy fillets wear,
Would you your poet’s first petition hear;
Give me the way of wand’ring stars to know:
The depths of heav’n above, and earth below.
Teach me the various labours of the moon,
And whence proceed th’ eclipses of the sun.
Why flowing tides prevail upon the main,
And in what dark recess they sink again.
What shakes the solid earth, what cause delays
The summer nights, and shortens winter days—
Happy the man, who, studying nature’s laws,
Through known effects can trace the secret cause.”

40. The lines here referred to were written about eight years after Sir Isaac Newton’s death. Voltaire supposes an apotheosis of Newton to have taken place, among the planets personified by some of the deities of the heathen mythology. Thus ascribing intelligence to the stars, he considers them, by a poetical fiction, as being in the confidence of the Most High—the true God; and to those subordinate deities, or, perhaps, a fancied superior order of angelic beings, the poet makes his figurative address; which may be thus rendered in English verse:—
Ye confidents of the Most High,
  Ye everlasting lights!
Who deck, with your refulgent fires,
  The scene of godlike rights!
Whose wings o’erspread the glorious throne
  Whereon your Lord is plac’d,
That Lord, by whose transcendent pow’r
  Your borrow’d rays are grac’d;
Speak out, bright orbs of heaven’s expanse!
  And frankly let us know:
To the exalted Newton’s name,
  Can you refuse to bow?

41. Godfrey Kirch was born in the year 1640, at Guben in Lower Lusatia, and lived with Hevelius. He published his Ephemerides in 1681, and became established at Berlin in 1700. This astronomer made numerous observations.

43. Mr. Messier observed this Comet in France, eleven days before it was discovered in England by Miss Herschel.

44. That the mind of the female sex is capable of compassing great and extraordinary attainments, even in the most arduous branches of science, is attested by many instances; and it cannot be doubted that these would be more numerous, were women oftener attentive to philosophical pursuits. Those who have been just named serve to shew, that astronomy has been cultivated with success, by them. And Dr. Reid tells us (in his Essays on the intellectual and active Powers of Man,) that both the celebrated Christiana, Queen of Sweden, and the Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Frederick, King of Bohemia, and aunt of George I., were adepts in the philosophy of Descartes. The latter of these princesses, though very young when Descartes wrote his Principia, was declared by that philosopher to be the only person he knew, who perfectly understood not only all his philosophical writings, but the most abstruse of his mathematical works.

45. The writer is happy in having it in his power to cite, in support of his own opinion, that of an amiable and conspicuous female, in favour of ladies making themselves acquainted with, at least, the rudiments of astronomical science.

46. Translated from the Latin.

47. This very eminent mathematician, as well as learned and pious divine, died in the year 1677, aged only forty-seven years. See the life of this extraordinary man, written in 1683, by the learned Abraham Hill; prefixed to the first volume of the doctor’s theological works; a fifth edition of which, in three folio volumes, was published by archbishop Tillotson, in 1741. He also wrote and published many geometrical and mathematical works, all in Latin.
“The name of Dr. Barrow,” says Mr. Granger, one of his biographers, “will ever be illustrious, for a strength of mind and a compass of knowledge that did honour to his country. He was unrivalled in mathematical learning, and especially in the sublime geometry, in which he was excelled only by one man; and that man was his pupil, the great Sir Isaac Newton. The same genius that seemed to be born only to bring hidden things to light, to rise to the heights or descend to the depths of science, would sometimes amuse itself in the flowery paths of poetry, and he composed verses both in Greek and Latin.”
This “prodigy of learning,” as he is called by Mr. Granger, was interred in Westminster Abbey, where a monument, adorned with his bust, is erected to his memory.

48. Flavius Josephus informs us, (in his Jewish Antiquities, b. i. chap. 7. 8.) that the sons of Seth employed themselves in astronomical contemplations. According to the same historian, Abraham inferred the unity and power of God, from the orderly course of things both at sea and land, in their times and seasons, and from his observations upon the motions and influences of the sun, moon and stars. He further relates, that this patriarch delivered lectures on geometry and arithmetic to the Egyptians, of which they understood nothing, until Abraham introduced those sciences from Chaldea into Egypt, from whence they passed into Greece: and, according to Eupolemus and Artapan, he instructed the Phœnicians, as well as the Egyptians, in astronomy.

49. We are informed by some ancient writers, that when Babylon was taken, Calisthenes, one of Aristotle’s scholars, carried from thence, by the desire of his master, celestial observations made by the Chaldeans, nearly two thousand years old; which carried them back to about the time of the dispersion of mankind by the confusion of tongues: and those observations are supposed to have been made in the famous temple of Belus, at Babylon. But these accounts are not to be depended on: because Hipparchus and Ptolemy could find no traces of any observations made at Babylon before the time of Nabonassar, who began his reign 747 years before the birth of Christ; and various writers, among the ancients, agree in referring the earliest Babylonian observations to about the same period. In all probability, the Chaldean observations were then little more than matters of curiosity; for, even in the three or four centuries immediately preceding the Christian era, the celestial observations which were made by the Greeks were, for the most part, far from being of any importance, in relation to astronomical science.
Indeed, the knowledge of astronomy at much later periods than those in which the most celebrated philosophers of Greece flourished, must have been very limited and erroneous, on account of the defectiveness of their instruments. And, added to the great disadvantages arising from this cause, the ancients laboured under the want of a knowledge of the telescope and the clock; and also maintained a false notion of the system of the world; which was almost universally adhered to, until the revival and improvement of the Pythagorean system by Copernicus, who died in 1543. Within the last two hundred years, but, particularly, since the laws of nature have been made manifest by the labours and discoveries of the immortal Newton, the science of astronomy has made astonishing advances towards perfection.

50. This sovereign re-established the university of Naples, founded that of Vienna in Austria, in the year 1237, and imparted new vigour to the schools of Bologna and Salerno. He caused many ancient works in medicine and philosophy to be translated from the Arabian tongue; particularly, the Almagest of Ptolemy.
Cotemporary with the Emperor Frederick II. was Alphonso X. King of Castile, surnamed the Wise. This prince was the first who manifested a desire of correcting the Tables of Ptolemy. In the year 1240, even during the life of his father, he drew to Toledo the most experienced astronomers of his time, Christians, Moors, or Jews; by whose labours he at length obtained the Alphonsine Tables, in 1252 (the first year of his reign:) which were first printed at Venice, in 1483. He died in the year 1284.

51. His name was John Holywood; deduced, according to a practice prevalent in his time, from the place of his nativity, which was Halifax, a town in the west-riding of Yorkshire, in England, where he was born in the year 1204. It was formerly named Holy-wood; and was, probably, so called in Sacro-Bosco’s day: but the more ancient name of that place was Horton, or Hair-town; and Halifax signifies Holy-hair.—This great man was the inventor of the sphere; and wrote a work, entitled De Sphærâ, which was very celebrated. He died at Paris, in 1256.

52. He died in 1294, at the age of eighty years.

53. Dr. Rush’s Eulogium, “intended to perpetuate the memory of David Rittenhouse,” &c. was delivered before the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, (a great many public characters, and a numerous concourse of private citizens, also attending,) on the 17th of December 1796. It was pronounced in pursuance of an appointment made by the society, in these words, viz:
“At a meeting convened by special order, on the 1st of July, 1796, the following motion was made, and unanimously adopted; viz. That this Society, deeply affected by the death of their late worthy President, do resolve, That an Eulogium, commemorative of his distinguished talents and services, be publicly pronounced before the Society, by one of its members.”—Dr. Rush’s appointment was made at the next meeting of the society.

54. “Biography, or the writing of Lives,” says Dr. Hugh Blair, “is a very useful kind of composition; less formal and stately than history; but to the bulk of readers, perhaps, no less instructive; as it affords them the opportunity of seeing the characters and tempers, the virtues and failings of eminent men, fully displayed; and admits them into a more thorough and intimate acquaintance with such persons, than history generally allows. For, a writer of lives may descend, with propriety, to minute circumstances and familiar incidents. It is expected of him, that he is to give the private, as well as public life, of the person whose actions he records; nay, it is from private life, from familiar, domestic, and seemingly trivial occurrences, we often receive most light into the real character.”—Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, sect. 36. In addition to so respectable an opinion as that of Professor Blair, respecting the utility and characteristic features of biographical works, the writer of these memoirs hopes he will be excused for giving the sentiments on the same subject, contained in the following extracts from Dr. Maty’s Memoirs of the Life of Lord Chesterfield, “tending to illustrate the civil, literary, and political history of his own time.”
“Besides the great utility which general history derives from private authorities, other advantages no less important,” says this learned and ingenious biographer, “may be obtained from them. It is from observing individuals, that we may be enabled to draw the outlines of that extraordinary, complicated being, man. The characteristics of any country or age must be deduced from the separate characters of persons, who, however distinguishable in many respects, still preserve a family-likeness. From the life of almost any one individual, but chiefly from the lives of such eminent men as seemed destined to enlighten or to adorn society, instructions may be drawn, suitable to every capacity, rank, age or station. Young men, aspiring to honours, cannot be too assiduous in tracing the means by which they were obtained: by observing with what difficulty they were preserved, they will be apprized of their real value, estimate the risks of the purchase, and discover frequent disappointment in the possession.”
“It is from the number and variety of private memoirs, and the collision of opposite testimonies, that the judicious reader is enabled to strike out light, and find his way through that darkness and confusion in which he is at first involved.”
“Who does not wish that Cæsar had lived to finish his Commentaries; and that Pompey’s sons, instead of fighting their father’s cause, had employed themselves in writing his life?—What a valuable legacy would Cicero have left us, if, instead of his philosophical works, he had written the memoirs of his own times! Or how much would Tyro, to whom posterity is so much indebted for the preservation of his master’s letters, have encreased that obligation, if, from his own knowledge, he had connected and explained them! The life of Agricola, by his son-in-law Tacitus, is undoubtedly one of the most precious monuments of antiquity.”

55. The duchy of Guelderland formerly belonged to the Spanish monarchy; but by the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, part of it was ceded to Austria, part to Prussia, and guaranteed to them by the treaty of Baden, in 1714: that part which became subject to Prussia was, in exchange for the principality of Orange, ceded to France. By the barrier-treaty, in 1715, the states general of the United Provinces likewise obtained a part of it. But the Upper and Lower Guelderland have no connexion with each other: Lower Guelderland is (or was, until very lately) one of the Seven United Provinces: it is the largest of them all, and the first in rank. Arnheim, which is the capital of the whole province, is a large, populous, and handsome town: it was formerly the residence of the dukes of Guelderland, and the states of the province held their meetings there.

56. The writer of these memoirs having been in Holland in the summer of the year 1778, adverted, while in Amsterdam, to the circumstance of the Rittenhouses, of Pennsylvania, having come into America from some part of the United Provinces; and his curiosity being excited, by his consanguineous connexion with that family, to obtain some information concerning them, the following was the result of his enquiries. He found a Mr. Adrian Rittinghuysen, (for so he himself wrote his name,) residing in that city. This venerable man, who was then eighty-five years of age, appeared to be at least independent in his condition; and had, probably, retired from business, the part of the city in which he resided (the Egelantier’s Gracht, or Canal,) not exhibiting the appearance of a street of trade.
The information derived from this respectable old man, was, that his forefathers had long been established at Arnheim; that his father, Nicholas, was a paper-manufacturer in that city, as others of the family had been; and that his father’s brother, William, went with his family to North America, where he some time afterward, as he had understood, established the paper-mills near Germantown. He further stated, that he had only one child, a daughter, who was married, and resided at the Hague; and that he was, himself, as he believed, the last of his family-name, remaining in the United Provinces.
Although plain in his dress and manners, and in the general appearance of his household, this person seemed to be pleased in shewing the writer a family-seal, on which was engraved a coat of arms. The armorial device represented a castellated house, or chateau; on the left side of which was a horse, standing on his hind feet and rearing up, with his fore feet resting against the wall of the house: and this house very much resembled the chateau in the armorial bearing of the Spanish family “de Fuentes, señores del Castillio,” as represented in Dubuisson’s French Collection of Arms: The seal having been much worn, the lines, &c. describing the several tinctures of the bearing, could not be discerned; and, therefore, it cannot be properly blazoned. At the same time, the old gentleman did not omit to mention, that his mother was a De Ruyter; and that her arms were, a mounted chevalier armed cap-à-piè.
These facts, relative to the origin of the American Rittenhouses, did not appear to the writer to be unworthy of notice. They are correctly stated, being taken from a memorandum made by him, immediately after his interview with Adrian Rittinghuysen.
The introduction of this slight sketch of the occupation and condition of some of the European ancestors of our Philosopher, into his Life, may be the more readily excused, since the great Newton himself was not inattentive to such objects. There is, indeed, implanted by nature in the human mind, a strong desire to become acquainted with the family-history of our forefathers. Hence, Sir Isaac Newton left, in his own hand-writing, a genealogical account or pedigree of his family; with directions, subjoined thereto, that the registers of certain parishes should be searched, from the beginning to the year 1650; and he adds—“Let the extracts be taken, by copying out of the registers whatever may be met with, about the family of the Newtons, in words at length, without omitting any of the words.” This investigation and enquiry of Sir Isaac, was made in the sixty-third year of his age; and he himself caused the result to be entered in the books of the herald’s office.
Such, also, was the curiosity of Dr. Benjamin Franklin. While the Doctor was in England, he undertook a journey to Eaton, in Northamptonshire, (a village situated between Wellingborough and Northampton,) the residence of his forefathers, for the purpose of obtaining information, as he tells us himself, concerning his family.—“To be acquainted with the particulars of my parentage and life, many of which are unknown to you,” (said Dr. Franklin in his Life, which he addressed to his son,) “I flatter myself, will afford the same pleasure to you as to me—I shall, relate them upon paper.”

57. See the preceding note.

58. Conradus Rittershusius was a learned civilian of Germany. He was born at Brunswick in the year 1560, and died at Altorf in Switzerland, in 1613. Two of his sons, George and Nicholas, also distinguished themselves in the republic of letters. The writer of the present memoirs is too little acquainted with the genealogies of either German or Dutch families, to pretend to claim any consanguinity between this C. Rittershuysen (or, as latinized, Rittershusius,) and our Rittenhouses. But the name appears to have been, originally, the same; and the ancestors of both, it may be presumed, were of the same country: In giving a latin termination to the name, the y is omitted, not being a Roman letter.

59. The Dutch were early and long distinguished for the superior quality of the paper manufactured in their country. It excelled, in its whiteness and the closeness of its texture, as well as its goodness in other respects, the paper made elsewhere; and it was an article of great importance to the republic, both for the internal consumption and for exportation, until the Hollanders were rivalled in this manufacture by the perfection to which it was afterwards brought in other parts of Europe.

59a. The number of Newspapers, printed annually in the United States, is estimated at twenty-two and an half millions.

60. Mr. Benjamin Rittenhouse, a younger brother of David, speaking of his paternal ancestors, in a letter addressed to the writer of these memoirs, says: “The family originally settled in the state of New-York, while a Dutch colony; and were, undoubtedly, the first paper-makers in America.” This fact was also communicated to the writer, by Dr. Franklin, some years before.

61. At the peace of Breda, in 1667, the Dutch colony of New Netherlands was confirmed to the English, to whom it had been ceded in 1664. But the Dutch having reduced the country in the years 1672 and 1673, it was finally restored to the English by the peace of Westminster, on the 9th of February, 1674. The Rittenhouses are supposed to have seated themselves, before this latter period, in that part of the colony afterwards called East-Jersey. Some of the name reside in the state of New-Jersey, at this day; but it is not known that any of them are inhabitants of the state of New-York. Those in New-Jersey, with most of those of the name in Pennsylvania, are descendants of Nicholas.

62. The Rittenhouses who first settled in America, are supposed to have leaned towards the religious tenets of (if they did not belong to) that peaceable branch of the Anabaptists, denominated Mennonites. Simon Menno, the founder of this sect, was one of the first reformers: he was born at a village called Witmarsum, in the Batavian province of Friesland, in 1505; the same year in which John Knox was born, and four years before the birth of Calvin.
Menno had been a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, and some have endeavoured to stigmatize him, as one who was “a notorious profligate.” This, however, may be attributed to his having left the communion of the church of which he was originally a member: for, he is represented to have been “a man of probity, of a meek and tractable spirit, gentle in his manners, pliable and obsequious in his commerce with persons of all ranks and characters, and extremely zealous in promoting practical religion and virtue, which he recommended by his example as well as by his precepts.” He was, moreover, a man of genius and eloquence, and possessed a considerable share of learning. This extraordinary man died in the duchy of Holstein, in the year 1561.
The fundamental principles of the followers of Menno are, in some respects, similar to those of the people called Quakers: They use, likewise, great plainness in their apparel, and adhere to some of the practices of the primitive Christian church. But this peaceable sect baptize adults, and celebrate the eucharist in a manner peculiar to themselves.
Some of Menno’s disciples came into Pennsylvania from New-York, in the year 1692. The principal congregation of this sect was established at Germantown, soon after the Rittenhouses had settled themselves there; and this may be considered as the mother of the sect, in America. The Mennonites have since become a numerous body in Pennsylvania, principally in the county of Lancaster; and this religious society comprehends, among its members, many intelligent worthy men, and valuable citizens.

63. In the Preface to a printed copy of the celebrated Speech delivered in the House of Assembly of Pennsylvania, on the 24th of May, 1764, by the late John Dickinson, Esq. the Merits of the Founder of Pennsylvania, as they were declared at various times, in the proceedings of the Legislative Body of the colony, and in some other public Documents, are thus summed up by the writer.

63a. In the continuation of the Life of Dr. Franklin, (written by the late Dr. Stuber, of Philadelphia,) it is said that the Preface to Mr. Dickinson’s Speech was drawn up by the late learned Provost Smith, and that Dr. Franklin wrote the Preface to Mr. Galloway’s, in reply.

63b. See Note 64

64. The Charter of Privileges, granted and solemnly confirmed to the freemen of Pennsylvania and territories belonging to the province, by the proprietary, on the 28th of October, 1701, was, after being approved and agreed to by the legislative body of the province, accepted by them the same day; in lieu of the Frame of Government originally stipulated between Mr. Penn and the Planters, in the year 1683. The first article of this charter provided for a full enjoyment of the Liberty of Conscience, by all persons who should acknowledge “One Almighty God, the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the World.” It also declared to be capable of holding any office or place, under the government, all persons professing faith in “Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the World,” and who should, when required, attest their allegiance, &c.

65. Incorporated with that edition of the Laws of Pennsylvania, which was published in the year 1810, “under the authority of the legislature,” with Notes and References, by Charles Smith, Esq. is an article that bears a respectful testimony to the justice and clemency of the founder of that state: It is an important and very interesting Note to an act of assembly passed the 1st day of April, 1784, (entitled, “An act for opening the Land-Office, for granting and disposing of the unappropriated Lands within this State,”) containing “a connected view of the land-titles of Pennsylvania from its first settlement to the present time.” In this document the learned editor speaks of the integrity and virtuous policy manifested by Penn, with respect to his conduct towards the Indian natives of the country, to which he had acquired the dominion under his sovereign, in these terms.
“William Penn, although clothed with powers as full and comprehensive as those possesed by the adventurers from Portugal and Spain, was influenced by a purer morality and sounder policy. His religious principles did not permit him to wrest the soil, by force, from the people to whom God and nature gave it, nor to establish his title in blood; but, under the shade of the lofty trees of the forest, his right was fixed by treaties with the natives, and sanctified, as it were, by incense smoking from the calumet of peace.”
The note from which this extract is made, (and which comprizes 156 large 8vo. pages, printed on a small type,) forms a valuable treatise, historical as well as legal, of the territorial rights of the former proprietaries, and of the land-titles deduced from them by the citizens of Pennsylvania.

66. Germantown was settled in the year 1682. It was so called by its founders, a small colony of Germans from the Palatinate, mostly from the vicinity of the city of Worms, who are said to have been converted while in their own country, to the principles of the people called Quakers, by the preaching of William Ames, an Englishman. Germantown is now a populous village, of considerable extent; and by reason of its proximity to the capital, this place furnishes an agreeable residence to many respectable families from thence. See also Note 62.

67. This township derives its name (which it gave also to Mr. Rittenhouse’s patrimonial farm and his original observatory,) as does likewise the neighbouring town of Norriston, the county-town of the (now) county of Montgomery, from the respectable Pennsylvania family of Norris; of which Isaac Norris, Esq. was eighteen times chosen Speaker of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, during the term of half a century from the time of his first election, in the year 1713. Mr. Norris held many public offices in Pennsylvania with great reputation and honour. He is represented as having been “an ornament to his country;” and this gentleman, who died in the year 1735, then held the Chief-Justiceship of the Province.

68. In the year 1683, Enoch Flower undertook to teach English in the town of Philadelphia. Six years afterwards, originated the Friends’ Public School in the same town, then in its infancy; and in 1697, this school was incorporated, on the petition of Samuel Carpenter, Edward Shippen, Anthony Morris, James Fox, David Lloyd, William Southby, and John Jones, in behalf of themselves and others. In the year 1708, this corporation was enlarged and perpetuated by a new charter, under the name of “The Overseers of the Public School, founded in Philadelphia, at the request, cost, and charges of the people called Quakers.” It was further extended in the year 1711; when the three first named gentlemen, together with Griffith Owen, Thomas Story, Richard Hill, Isaac Norris, Samuel Preston, Jonathan Dickinson, Nathan Stanbury, Thomas Masters, Nicholas Waln, Caleb Pusey, Rowland Ellis and James Logan, were appointed Overseers.
As this was the earliest considerable school established in Pennsylvania, as well as the first institution of the kind, in the province, the names of its promoters deserve to be held in remembrance, among the Patrons of learning and useful knowledge in this country.
From this view of the origin of schools in the capital of Pennsylvania, it will be perceived, that the means of acquiring even the rudiments of literary instruction must have been difficult of access in country places, for some considerable time after the periods just mentioned. This is one of the most serious grievances to which the settlers in new and unimproved countries are subjected.

69. Margaret, who intermarried with Edward Morgan; Esther, with the Rev. Thomas Barton; David, the subject of these Memoirs; Andrew, who died in his minority; Anne, who intermarried with George Shoemaker; Eleanor, who intermarried with Daniel Evans; Benjamin, yet living; Jonathan, who died in his minority; and Mary and Elizabeth (twins,) of whom the latter died in her minority, unmarried: Mary, who is living, has been twice married, but without issue; her first husband was Thomas Morgan. David had no sons; and two of his three brothers having died young and unmarried, the only persons, descended from our philosopher’s father, Matthias, who now bear the name of Rittenhouse, are the surviving brother of David, namely, Benjamin, and his sons. Benjamin has been twice married; first, to a daughter of General John Bull; and, secondly, to a daughter of Colonel Francis Wade: By both marriages he has male issue; and, as it is believed, two of the sons by the first wife are married.

70. “There is,” says a late ingenious writer,70a “a strong propensity in the human mind to trace up our ancestry to as high and as remote a source as possible.” “This principle of our nature,” he observes, “although liable to great perversion; and frequently the source of well-founded ridicule, may, if rightly directed, become the parent of great actions. The origin and progress of individuals, of families, and of nations, constitute Biography and History, two of the most interesting departments of human knowledge.”
The pride of ancestry is, indeed, “liable to great perversion,” and is too frequently “the source of well-founded ridicule:” yet the experience and the history of mankind, in every age and country, have shewn, that it is connected with and derived from principles of our nature, which are not only laudable in themselves, but such as, if “rightly directed” and properly applied, become eminently useful to society.

70a. See a “Discourse delivered before the New-York Historical Society, at their anniversary meeting, December the 6th, 1811: By the Hon. De Witt Clinton, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Society.”

71. It is not this occupation that, in itself, usually attaches to those who follow it, the idea of clownishness: but it is the ignorance that, unfortunately, too generally characterizes persons employed in it, which, by an association of ideas, is apt to derogate from the worthiness of the employment itself. If the profession of husbandry be an honourable one, and every rational consideration renders it such, then one of the most important operations in conducting the great business of the agriculturist, cannot be destitute of dignity. To follow the plough is not a servile labour: it is an employment worthy of a freeman; and if the person, thus engaged, be a man of native talents, aided by some improvement of mind, scarcely any occupation can afford him greater scope for philosophic reflection.

71a. Thomson’s Spring.

72. This gentleman was commissioned by Governor Mifflin, in the year 1791, to be one of the associate judges of the court of common pleas, in and for the county of Montgomery: but his tenure of this office was afterwards vacated, by his removal to Philadelphia.

73. “Astronomy,” says Mr. B. Rittenhouse, in the letter before referred to, “appeared at a very early day to be his favourite study; but he also applied himself industriously to the study of opticks, the mechanical powers,” &c.

74. The zeal and attention with which our young philosopher pursued his early studies, and such mechanical objects as are more intimately connected with those branches of natural philosophy to which he was most devoted, will appear from the following extract of a letter, addressed by him to Mr. Barton, on the 20th of September, 1756, being then little more than twenty-four years of age; viz. “I have not health for a soldier,” (the country was then engaged in war,) “and as I have no expectation of serving my country in that way, I am spending my time in the old trifling manner, and am so taken with optics, that I do not know whether, if the enemy should invade this part of the country, as Archimedes was slain while making geometrical figures on the sand, so I should die making a telescope.”

75. ^It is observable, that, in like manner, an accidental circumstance seems to have given the first impulse to the philosophical researches of that eminent mathematician, Colin Maclaurin, the friend and disciple of Newton. His biographer, Mr. Murdoch, relates, that “his genius for mathematical learning discovered itself so early as at twelve years of age; when, having accidentally met with a copy of Euclid in a friend’s chamber, in a few days he became master of the first six books, without any assistance: and thence, following his natural bent, made such a surprising progress, that very soon after we find him engaged in the most curious and difficult problems.”

75a. The Port-Folio.

76. In order to gratify the curiosity, if not to remove the doubts, of such persons as are not disposed to believe in the reality of any thing like an hereditary power, bias, or propensity of the mind, the following memorable instances are selected from many others which might be adduced; to shew that mental faculties, as well as corporeal qualities and even mental and bodily diseases, are sometimes inherited by children from their parents: perhaps cases of this kind exist more frequently than is either observed or imagined.
Mr. James Gregory, the inventor of the reflecting telescope in common use, called the Gregorian, was one of the most distinguished mathematicians of the seventeenth century. This eminent man, who was born at Aberdeen in Scotland in the year 1638, was a son of the Rev. Mr. John Gregory, minister of Drumoak in the same county: his mother was, moreover, a daughter of Mr. David Anderson, of Finzaugh, a gentleman who possessed a singular turn for mathematical pursuits.
Mr. David Gregory, a nephew of the foregoing, was some time Savilian professor of astronomy at Oxford. This Subtilissimi Ingenii Mathematicus, as he is styled by his successor Dr. Smith, was born at Aberdeen, in the year 1661. Of the four sons of this celebrated mathematician,—
David, a mathematician, was regius professor of modern history, at Oxford;
James was professor of mathematics, at Edinburgh; and
Charles was also professor of mathematics, at St. Andrew’s.
Besides these men of genius in the same family, was the late Dr. John Gregory, professor of medicine in the University of Edinburgh; who had previously held the philosophical chair in the University of St. Andrews, from which he delivered lectures on the mathematics, experimental philosophy, and moral philosophy. This gentleman was grandson of the inventor of the Gregorian telescope, son of Dr. James Gregory, professor of medicine at Aberdeen, and father of another James, successor of Dr. Cullen, in the medical chair at Edinburgh.
A mathematical genius was hereditary in the family of the Andersons; and, from them, it seems to have been transmitted to their descendants of the name of Gregory. Alexander Anderson, cousin-german of David abovementioned, was professor of mathematics at Paris, in the beginning of the eighteenth century; and published there in 1712, Supplementum Apollonii redivivi, &c. The mother of the James Gregory, first named, inherited the genius of her family; and observing in her son, while yet a child, a strong propensity to mathematics, she herself instructed him in the elements of that science.
Margaret, the mother of the late Dr. Thomas Reid, professor of moral philosophy in the University of Glasgow, was a daughter of David Gregory, Esq. of Kinnardie in Banffshire, elder brother of the James Gregory first mentioned. It is remarked by a celebrated writer, that “the hereditary worth and genius which have so long distinguished, and which still distinguish, the descendants of this memorable family, are well known to all who have turned their attention to Scottish biography: but it is not known so generally, that in the female line, the same characteristical endowments have been conspicuous in various instances; and that to the other monuments which illustrate the race of the Gregories, is to be added the philosophy of Reid.”—(See Dugald Stewart’s Account of the Life and Writings of Dr. Reid.)
The great mathematical genius of the celebrated astronomer, John Dominick Cassini, descended to his great-grandson. John-James, the son of John-Dominick, who inherited the genius of his father, succeeded him as professor of astronomy in the Royal Observatory at Paris, a place which the father had filled more than forty years: John-James’s son, Cæsar-Francis Cassini de Thury, (who died in the year 1784, at the age of seventy years,) was an eminent astronomer: and his son, the Count John-Dominick de Thury, was also a distinguished astronomer.
The eldest of these Cassini’s was a native of Italy, and born in 1625. He died in the seventy-seventh year of his age; and in the year 1695, a medal was struck to honour his memory, by order of the king of France.
These instances of genius in three families, afford striking examples of its being sometimes hereditary. It is further observable, that, in the case of the great professor Simson, his mathematical endowments were said to be derived from his mother’s family; as Mr. Rittenhouse’s were likewise supposed to have been from that of his mother.

77. Mr. Barton resided on a farm, near what are called the Sulphur Springs (now comprehended within the limits of the new county of Adams,) from some time in the year 1755, until the spring of 1759; during which period he officiated as a missionary from “the society,” established in England, “for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts,” for the counties of York and Cumberland. While he resided in that then remote settlement of Pennsylvania, he was greatly instrumental, both by his precept and example, in stimulating the people to avenge the numerous barbarities perpetrated on the inhabitants and their property in that frontier, by their French and Indian enemies. In the expedition against Fort Du Quesne (now Pittsburg,) undertaken in the year 1758, under the orders of brigadier-general Forbes, he served as a chaplain to the forces then employed, by virtue of a commission from governor Denny: and in that campaign he became personally acquainted not only with the commander in chief, but, among others, with colonel (afterwards general) Washington; colonel (afterwards general) Mercer; colonel Byrd of Virginia; colonel Dagworthy; colonel James Burd of Pennsylvania; all provincial officers of great merit; besides colonel (afterwards general) Bouquet, sir John St. Clair, sir Peter Hacket, major Stewart, and other gentlemen of worth and distinction, who held commands in the British regiments engaged in that service. With most of these very respectable military characters Mr. Barton occasionally corresponded, afterward; and his services, during a residence of between three and four years in that part of Pennsylvania, were honourably acknowledged, as well in England as among his fellow-citizens, in various instances.
After Mr. Barton left the county of York, he became established in Lancaster, where he officiated as rector of St. James’s church in that borough, and missionary to the large and respectable country-congregations of Caernarvon and Pequea, nearly twenty years.

78. Although commonly called Dunker’s-Town, the proper name of this once noted village is Ephrata. The little community which formerly resided there, usually styled Dunkers, date the origin of their sect about the year 1705. The original members of this religious society, in Germany, Switzerland, and some other parts of Europe, having been persecuted and banished from their homes, assembled themselves in the duchy of Cleves, under the protection of the king of Prussia: and from thence they migrated to Pennsylvania, mostly between the years 1718 and 1734, a few of them only remaining behind. See also the next note.

79. The proper name of this place is Ephrata; and the very singular religious society to whom it belongs, are denominated Seventh-Day Baptists.
The society is said to have originally consisted of about twenty families who migrated from Germany to Pennsylvania, about the year 1718 or 1719; part of whom settled at this place, and founded the village of Ephrata (the head-quarters of the sect,) which is situated about thirteen miles, north-eastward, from Lancaster, on a little stream called the Cocolico-creek. These people hold the doctrine of an universal redemption, ultimately, denying the eternity of future punishment; that war and judicial oaths are unchristian; and that it is not justifiable to take interest, for money lent. They keep the seventh day of the week as their sabbath, and baptize by submersion; whence they derive their name: they also inculcate the propriety of celibacy, and of maintaining a community of goods; but when any of them marry, and acquire property independent of the society in Ephrata, they are obliged to retire from thence and reside elsewhere. The men generally wear their beards, and clothe themselves in a habit not unlike that of the Carmelites or White Friars: the women dress like nuns. Both men and women observe great abstemiousness in their diet, living chiefly on vegetables, and submit to some privations and corporal severities, besides, in their religious discipline; they lie upon benches, with a wooden block instead of a pillow: but though meek, humble, and even timid, in their deportment, they are very civil to strangers who visit them.
The society of Ephrata is supported by cultivating their lands, conducting a printing-press, a grist-mill, a paper-mill, a saw-mill, a tan-yard, &c. and the women are employed in spinning, knitting, sewing, making paper-lanterns and other toys, &c.
The village consists of about ten or a dozen buildings; and is mostly composed of the cloisters and convent, two churches, and the mills. One of their places of worship adjoins the sisters’ apartments, as a chapel; another belongs to the brothers’ apartments: and to these churches, the brethren and the sisterhood respectively resort, every morning and evening, sometimes, too, in the night, for the purpose of worshipping; much of which is made up of soft and melodious chanting, by the females. There is said to be one other place of worship, wherein all the members of the society, within the bounds of the settlement, meet once a week to celebrate worship publicly.
Such, indeed, was the pleasant, sequestered little village of Ephrata, at the time our then very young philosopher visited it; and such was the condition of that little-known sect of Christians, while the society continued under the direction of their second and last president, the late Mr. Peter Miller. This venerable old German, who had been bred to the priesthood in some one of the Protestant churches of his native country, became a convert to the principles of this obscure ascetic sect, over which he long presided with much reputation, after the death of its reputed founder, Conrad Beixler, his patriarchal predecessor. But, though possessing a good share of the old scholastic learning, with a large portion of piety, the mind of Mr. Miller was strongly tinctured with many mystical notions in divinity; such as well comported with the “whimsies” of the religious society he governed.
Since the death of this good man, the ancient discipline of the religious community at Ephrata, which had become greatly relaxed during the revolutionary war, has almost wholly disappeared. The chief seat of the Seventh-Day Baptists is no longer what it was: for, in lieu of the solemn devotional stillness of the secluded cloysters and cells of its once monastic inhabitants, and which, at this time, are nearly deserted, are now substituted various occupations of industry, amidst “the busy haunts of men.”
A letter from lady Juliana Penn to the second and last worthy president of this little religious society, has a place in the Appendix. It is indicative of the goodness of her ladyship’s heart.

80. The county-town of Berks, in Pennsylvania, pleasantly situated on the Schuylkill, about fifty-six miles, north-westward, from Philadelphia.

81. A neighbouring township to Norriton, the place of Mr. Rittenhouse’s country residence.

82. This farm contained about one hundred and fifty acres. It was lately sold by the heirs of Dr. Rittenhouse.

83. “Omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid acquiritur, nihil est agriculturâ melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine, nihil libero dignius,” Cic. De Offic. ii. 42.

84. The opinion, that Mr. Rittenhouse was, in his youth and the first years of his manhood, “without literary friends or society, and with but two or three books,” though erroneous in fact, was propagated pretty early; and that opinion has, since, generally prevailed. About twenty-two years before his death, a book was published in Philadelphia, under the title of Caspipina’s Letters; of which the Rev. Mr. Duché, then assistant-minister of Christ-church and St. Peter’s in that city, was the writer. In that pleasant little work, its amiable and worthy author (who has been dead many years) has thus mentioned our philosopher. “After taking a few turns in the garden, we walked back again to the college, where we had appointed to meet the modest and ingenious Mr. Rittenhouse, who, without one single advantage from a private tutor, or public education, by the mere force of genius and industry, may now justly be reckoned the first astronomer and mathematician in the world.”
Under such circumstances as these, it is by no means a matter of surprise, that Dr. Rush should have been led into a similar mistake.
It is, nevertheless, truly astonishing to find an American writer (the late Rev. Mr. Linn,) who, five years after Dr. Rittenhouse’s death, published in Philadelphia, where both resided, a poem entitled, “The Powers of Genius;” but, in which the name of Rittenhouse is not once noticed! And yet that gentleman had not omitted to introduce, in one of his notes, an observation which shews, that an European philosopher, also of sublime genius, was present to his mind’s eye!—“From the exhibitions of American talents,” said Mr. Linn, “I indulge the warmest expectations. I behold, in imagination, the Newtons, the Miltons, and the Robertsons, of this new world; and I behold the sun of genius” (likewise “in imagination,” it is presumed,) “pouring on our land his meridian beams.”
The writer of these memoirs believes Dr. Linn to have been a very worthy, as well as an ingenious man: as such, he regrets his premature death, and entertains a respect for his memory. But he could not, in justice to the merit of Dr. Rittenhouse’s character, pass unnoticed so unaccountable an omission as the one just mentioned, in Dr. Linn’s Poem.

85. Dr. Herschel, by means of his admirable telescopes, the most powerful that have ever been constructed, discovered on the 13th of March, 1781, a new planet without the orbit of Saturn, called the Georgium Sidus. The newly discovered star was thus named by Dr. Herschel himself, in honour of his patron King George III. by whose bounty he was enabled to construct, and to make incessant and laborious observations with those wonderful telescopes, by which this astronomer has extended our knowledge of the planetary and sidereal system, far beyond its former limits.85a
Some astronomers on the continent of Europe, and in America likewise, have affected to call this new planet Herschel; while others have endeavoured to give it the name of Uranus. Would it not be well, in order to avoid the perplexity and confusion arising from various names for the same thing, that astronomers of eminence should designate this planet, in future, by the name which the discoverer—who, it may be presumed, was best entitled to give it a denomination—chose to apply to it? It is a strange kind of compliment to Dr. Herschel, if it could have been intended as a mark of respect to him, to refuse an adoption of that name which he had assigned to his own discovery; even by changing it for that of the Doctor himself! He wished this planet, no doubt, to retain the appellation of Georgium Sidus, as a memorial of his grateful respect for his royal benefactor; and in this object of his wish he would be disappointed, by changing it for any other.
The name Uranus is also objectionable, and on another ground. Uranus was a fabulous personage. It is pretended, that in the isle called Panchay,85b to the east of Africa, is to be seen on a column of gold, a recital of the principal actions of Uranus, together with those of Saturn and Jupiter. It is said that the former was the most ancient king in the world; and that, having been a just and beneficent man, well versed in the knowledge of the stars, he was the first who offered sacrifices to the gods of heaven. We are also told, that in the island just named is a mountain, where Uranus, holding the sceptre of the world, took great pleasure in contemplating the firmament and the stars. Among the sons of this monarch, according to the same fiction, the two most distinguished were Atlas and Saturn, who partitioned between them their father’s kingdom; and Atlas, who in the division acquired the sea-coasts, is said to have excelled in astrology: his reign is placed about sixteen hundred years before the Christian era, and he is therefore ranked as a co-temporary of Moses.
Such is the fabulous history of Uranus! whose name some Christian philosophers seem desirous to perpetuate, with honour, by attaching it to a newly-discovered world! It would be extremely difficult if not impracticable (and, perhaps, even if practicable, the attempt would not be advisable at this time of day,) to abolish such of the names of the heavenly bodies as are derived from the appellations of the false gods of antiquity. But it appears very questionable, whether it be consistent with propriety and a due regard to truth, to connect fable, in any manner, with established and important realities; or whether it be right to dignify the heathen mythology and the preposterous annals of fabulous ages, by unnecessarily associating any thing relating to them, with objects of genuine and useful science.
Baron Bielfeld seems to entertain similar sentiments on this head, when (treating of the mathematics, in his “Elements of Universal Erudition,”) he observes, that “the fables of ancient poets concerning the stars, and,” he adds, “the fancies of some modern Christian astronomers, who have given them names borrowed from the holy scriptures, do not deserve the least attention, when we would treat seriously on this science.” There is much justness in this observation of the learned and ingenious baron: But if the application of names derived from sacred writ, to the stars, be censurable; how much to be condemned among Christians is the practice of giving, even in our day, and in a science which has philosophical truth for its object, the names of heathen deities, and fabulous persons of antiquity, to the celestial bodies! Is it proper, can it, in any way, promote the interests of true science or the attainment of useful knowledge, thus to commemorate any of the absurdities of a false and impious mythology; or any of those traditional personages of the early ages, whose history, as handed down to us in the reveries of the ancient poets and other profane writers, are either enveloped in fable or inexplicable mystery? But to return from this digression:—
Mr. Lalande remarks in his great work on astronomy, which was published in the year 1792, that Louis XIV. gave to astronomers unceasing marks of the interest he took in their labours; and that George III. occupied, with great delight, much of his time in his Observatory at Richmond, as well as in Herschel’s at Slough. In his own, in Richmond Gardens, the king of England has noble and beautiful instruments; among which are a mural arch of 140° and 8 feet radius, made by Sisson, a sector of 12 feet, a transit telescope of 8 feet, made by Adams, and a telescope of 10 feet of Herschel. This grand Observatory was erected in the year 1770, under the direction of Dr. Bevis: it is 140 feet in front, and consists of two stories.
Such princes, then, as Louis XIV. and George III. deserve to be honourably mentioned in the records of astronomical science: and it was meritorious in Dr. Herschel, to dedicate to so munificent a patron and promoter of astronomy as the latter sovereign, in the way he has done, his important discovery of a new planet.
It is noticed by the writer of the article “Astronomy,” in Dr. Brewster’s New Edinburgh Encyclopædia, (the first volume of which has been very lately reprinted in Philadelphia,) that the venerable Herschel,85c at the advanced age of seventy-two years, still continued to observe the heavens with the most unwearied assiduity: and that his contemplated “successor,” who, it is presumed, is his son, “promises to inherit the virtues and the talents of his father.”

85a. Herschel, in calling his newly-discovered planet by the name of his patron, was not without illustrious precedents for so doing. When Galileo discovered the four Satellites of Jupiter, in the year 1610, he named them the Medicea Sidera, in honour of the family of Medici, his patrons. And Cassini, who, in the years 1671, 1672, and 1684, successively, discovered the fifth, the third, and the first and second Satellites of Saturn, denominated these stars, Sidera Lodoicea, in honour of Louis XIV. in whose reign, and observatory, they were first discovered. The fourth Satellite of Saturn (but the first of them, in the order of time, that was known) had been previously discovered by Huygens, sixteen years before any one of the others was known to exist.

85b. So written by Lalande. There is an Asiatic island called Panay: it is one of the Philippines, and lies, as Panchay is said to do, “to the east of Africa.”

85c. “Herschel, with ample mind and magic glass,
Mid worlds and worlds revolving as they pass,
Pours the full cluster’d radiance from on high,
That fathomless abyss of Deity.”
Purs. of Lit. dial. the fourth.

86. Philip III. king of Spain, first offered a reward for the discovery of the longitude, about two centuries ago; and the States of Holland, soon after, followed his example. The Regent of France, during the minority of Louis XV. also promised a great reward to any person who should discover the longitude at sea.
In the year 1714, the parliament of Great Britain offered a reward for a like discovery; and if the method, to be proposed, should determine the longitude to twenty geographical miles, the premium was to be twenty-thousand pounds sterling. The act of parliament established a board of Commissioners of the Longitude. Several other acts were passed, in the reigns of Geo. II. and III. directed to the same purpose. Finally, in the year 1774, all those acts were repealed, by one offering separate premiums for finding the longitude; either by the lunar method, or by a watch keeping true time,—or by any other method practicable at sea. This act proposes as a reward for a time-keeper, 5000l., if it determine the longitude to one degree or sixty geographical miles,—7500l., if to forty miles,—and 10,000l., if to thirty miles. If the method be by improved Solar and Lunar Tables, constructed upon Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of gravitation, the author is to receive 5000l.; provided such Tables shall show the distance of the Moon from the Sun and Stars within fifteen seconds of a degree, answering to about seven minutes of longitude, after making an allowance of a half a degree for the errors of observation. The Commissioners have the power of giving smaller rewards, at their discretion, to persons making any discovery for finding the longitude at sea, though it may not be within the above limits.
The set of Solar and Lunar Tables which were sent to the Board of Longitude, about the year 1763, by the widow of the celebrated astronomer, Tobias Mayer, were honoured with a reward of 3000l. sterling, by an act of the British parliament, in consideration of their great usefulness in finding the longitude at sea.

87. See Mr. de Zach’s great work, entitled, Tabulæ Motuum Solis novæ et correctæ, &c.

88. For the use of such readers as may not be acquainted with the Latin language, the following translation of the above is given, from the original of Mr. de Zach.
“Concerning the means of determining the longitude, this is not the proper place to treat: of one, however, the marine or nautical time-keeper, it will not be foreign to our purpose to say something.
“It is now about thirty years, since those very ingenious makers of time-keepers, Harrison, Cummings, Kendal, Arnold, and Mudge, among the English,—Le Roy, and Berthoud, among the French,—devised various and excellent ones for the use of navigators, and brought to a great degree of perfection those marine watches, called by the English, Time-keepers. As every one knows their use in ascertaining the longitude, on a sea-voyage, I shall not say any thing more of them here.—A similar time-piece, made by the celebrated watch-maker Mr. Thomas Mudge, and often referred to in the royal observatory of Greenwich, was, in 1784, made use of by the Hon. Vice-Admiral (John) Campbell, commander of the naval squadron 88a on the Newfoundland station,—going thither and returning; and from that time was diligently examined, at the observatory of his Excellency Count Bruhl, in Dover street London.
“This very marine time-piece was confided to my charge, in the year 1786, for the purpose of determining the longitudes of my journey by land; when, called from London by his Serene Highness the Duke of Saxe-Gotha,—the patron of all the sciences and liberal arts, but more especially favouring astronomy,—I returned to Germany; where the erecting of a complete and splendid Observatory, at Gotha, was placed under my direction.88b I then took with me, by the command of his Serene Highness, a watch of a smaller size, which he usually carried in his fob,—called by the English a Pocket-chronometer,—made by a London artist, Mr. Josiah Emery:88c which, being made with the greatest accuracy and ingenuity, yielded nothing in point of correctness to the larger nautical time-keepers, as may be seen from three tables of their movements by the illustrious Count Bruhl, and also of others, by Dr. Arnold, lately established by authenticated certificates.
“About the end of the year 1786 and the beginning of 1787, I accompanied His Serene Highness, in a tour through Germany, France and Italy. In this journey, the longitudes of several places and astronomical observatories were determined, from a comparison of the time of a nautical time-keeper (which was set by the solar mean time in Dover street, London,) with the mean time of the place; which appears by the altitudes of the sun, by Hadley’s sextant—those which we call corresponding, or by a comparison with it, as transmitted to us in observatories, by those astronomers. By the same instruments, therefore, when I arrived at Gotha, I ascertained the longitude of the future observatory there, with the greatest care and attention; which the Duke, going to London a few days after, taking with him his chronometer, at length fully verified.”

88a. Here is a reference, in the text, to note 89.

88b. Here is a reference, in the text, to note 90.

88c. Here is a reference, in the text, to note 91.

89. Sundry astronomical observations were made by this officer, while a captain in the British navy, in the years 1757, 8, and 9; which were reported to the admiralty on the 14th of April, 1760, by Dr. Bradley, then astronomer-royal. See Dr. Bradley’s letter of that date, to the Secretary of the Admiralty; published (among other papers) in the year 1770, by order of the board of longitude, at the end of T. Mayer’s Tables and Method of finding the Longitude; edited by Dr. Maskelyne.

90. The Observatory, a very handsome and respectable one, was constructed at Gotha in the year 1788, under the auspices of the then reigning Duke of Saxe-Gotha, a zealous patron of astronomy. It is placed on an eminence, a league from the city, and is built entirely of hewn stone. Mr. de Zach, a native of Hungary, an experienced astronomer, was appointed by the duke its director.
The instruments with which the Gotha Observatory is furnished are chiefly English, as are those of most of the celebrated European observatories. Among these, is a transit telescope, by Ramsden; and Mr. Lalande mentions, in his Astronomie (in the year 1792,) that there were to be added, two murals of eight feet radius, an entire circle of eight feet diameter, a great zenith-sector, &c. but that Mr. Ramsden, who was employed to make them, found great difficulty in supplying all the demands for instruments, which his great reputation occasioned.
It is well known, that the first improvements in astronomical instruments took place in Great-Britain; and both Lalande and de Zach, as well as other foreign astronomers of eminence, have done ample justice to the superior ingenuity and skill of the artists of that country, in this department of mechanism. The ingenious Mr. Edmund Stone, in his Supplement to the English Translation of Mr. Bion’s Construction and Use of Mathematical Instruments, (published in 1758, nearly forty years after he translated Mr. Bion’s work into English,) observes—that, having set about the business (the translating of this latter work,) he soon perceived that many French instruments were excelled by some of the English of the same kind, in contrivance; and that, as to workmanship, he never did see one French instrument so well framed and divided as some English have been. “For example,” says Mr. Stone, “Mr. Sutton’s quadrants, made above one hundred years ago,” (before the middle of the seventeenth century,) “are the finest divided instruments in the world; and the regularity and exactness of the vast number of circles drawn upon them, is highly delightful to behold. The mural quadrant at the Royal Observatory, at Greenwich, far exceeds that of the Royal Observatory at Paris. Also, the theodolites of Messrs. Sisson and Heath, the clocks and watches of Messrs. Graham, Tompion and Quare, the orreries of Mr. Graham and Mr. Wright, and many more curiously contrived and well executed mathematical instruments which I could mention, far exceed those of the French, or indeed any other nation in the world.—The making good mathematical instruments,” continues Mr. Stone, “is almost peculiar to the English; as well as their skill in all branches of the mathematics and natural philosophy has been generally superior to that of other nations.”
Without wishing to derogate from the justly acquired fame of British artists, for the excellence of their mathematical and astronomical instruments, M. Rittenhouse’s skill and accuracy, displayed in such as he made, stand unsurpassed by similar works of their most celebrated mechanicians: while his profoundness in astronomical science, and his wonderful ingenuity of invention and contrivance, manifested in the construction of his Orrery, leave him without a rival, in the two-fold character of an Astronomer and a Mechanic. The idea of the fine planetarian machine constructed by Mr. Rowley, under the name of the Orrery, and supposed to have been invented by Mr. Graham, is said to have been taken from a very similar machine, of which that eminent philosopher, Dr. Stephen Hales, had the credit of being the original contriver. But Mr. Rittenhouse was, incontrovertibly, the Inventor, as well as the Maker, of that sublimely-conceived and unrivalled machine, which bears the name of the Rittenhouse-Orrery: and Dr. Morse, in noticing some of the more prominent productions of scientific ingenuity and skill, in America, observes, with good reason, that “every combination of machinery may be expected from a country, a native son of which,” (referring in a note to “David Rittenhouse, Esq. of Pennsylvania,”) “reaching this inestimable object in its highest point, has epitomised the motions of the spheres that roll throughout the universe.” See Morse’s American Geography, first published in 1789.

91. The accuracy of some of the fine pocket-chronometers constructed by the celebrated artists named by Mr. de Zach, and by some others, such, for instance, as the one made by Emery for the count de Bruhl, mentioned in the text, has rendered them, on some occasions, useful assistants in making astronomical observations on land. Dr. Rittenhouse occasionally used one for such purposes, many years. It was an excellent pocket-watch, made by Le Roy of Paris for the late Matthias Barton, Esq. who was induced to let Dr. Rittenhouse have it. After his decease, this watch was gratuitously restored to its former proprietor, by Mrs. Rittenhouse’s desire, and as a testimonial of what she knew to have been her late husband’s regard for his nephew. Mr. M. Barton bequeathed it, by his last will, to his brother and physician, Dr. Benjamin S. Barton.

92. The Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, for the year 1729, contain an article that furnishes additional evidence of the extraordinary skill and ingenuity manifested by English artists in the construction of watches, as well as other pieces of mechanism which require great accuracy in the workmanship: it forms a pleasant little narrative in an eulogium on Father Sebastian,92a a Carmelite Friar of singular mechanical ingenuity; and it indicates, at the same time, that the repeating-watch was invented in England. The story is thus told:—
“Charles II. roy d’Angleterre, avoit envoyé au feu roi deux Montres à Repetition; les premieres qu’on ait vues en France. Elles ne pouvoient s’ouvrir que par une secrete précaution des ouvriers Anglois, pour cacher la nouvelle construction, et s’en assurer d’autant plus la gloire et le profit. Les montres se dérangérent, et furent remises entre les mains de M. Martineau, horloger du roi, qui n’y put travailler faute de les sçavoir ouvrir. Il dit a M. Colbert, et c’est un trait de courage digne d’etre remarqué, qu’il ne connoissoit qu’un jeune Carme capable d’ouvrir les montres, ques’il n’y réussissoit pas, il falloit se resoudre à les renvoyer en Angleterre. M. Colbert consentit qu’il les donnât au P. Sebastien, qui les ouvrit assez promptement, et de plus les raccommoda sans sçavoir qu’ elles étoient au roi, ni combien étoit important par ses circonstances l’ouvrage dont on l’avoit chargé.”

92a. His baptismal name was John Truchet.

93. This great man, who was the son of Christian Huygens lord of Zuylichem, a counsellor of the prince of Orange, was born in the year 1629, at Zuylichem, in the province of Guelderland, the country of the ancestors of Rittenhouse. Having resided for some time in France, he quitted that country on account of his religion, in 1684, in consequence of the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He died in Holland in 1695, at the age of sixty-six years.
Galileo, who was a native of Florence, lived to the age of eighty-seven years. He died fifty-three years before Huygens; and about fourteen before Huygens’s application of the pendulum to clocks, so as to effect an isochronal regulation of their movements. Galileo’s use of the pendulum, for the purpose of measuring time, seems to have been nothing more than the annexation of a short pendulum to clock-work.

94. This celebrated naturalist and physician, who was styled by Boerhaave, Monstrum Eruditionis, was born at Zurich in 1516: He was, probably, of the same family as that of the late Solomon Gesner the poet, who was a native of the same city, and appeared more than two centuries afterwards. Conrad Gesner was so distinguished a writer, as a naturalist, that he was called the Pliny of Germany. A splendid edition of Pliny’s Natural History, under the title of the Historia Mundi of Caius Plinius Secundus, with a dedication by Erasmus to Stanislaus Turzo, bishop of Olmutz, was printed at Basil, by Froben, so early as 1525. This copy of Pliny (which is now very rare) having been published in the vicinity of Conrad Gesner, during his youth, that circumstance may have prompted him to direct his attention to those pursuits in science, which distinguished this learned Swiss.

95. About two centuries after that period when the sciences had begun to revive and the mechanical arts to flourish, the construction of clocks appears to have been much improved. And in the reign of Henry VIII. a stately clock was made by an artist, the initials of whose name are “N. O.” in the year 1540, and placed in the royal palace at Hampton-Court. This not only shewed the hour of the day, but an orrery-part, connected with it, exhibited the motion of the sun through all the signs of the zodiac, and also of the moon, with other matters depending on them. A similar one, in the cathedral of Lunden in Denmark, is mentioned by Heylin: But Martin, in his Philosophia Britannica, speaks of a piece of clock-work in the cathedral of Strasburg, in Alsace; “in which, besides the clock-part, is the celestial globe or sphere, with the motions of the sun, moon, planets and fixed stars, &c.” This was finished in the year 1574, and is represented as being much superior to a pompous clock at Lyons, in France, which also has an orrery department.

96. The first pendulum-clock made in England, was in the year 1662, by Mr. Fromanteel, a Dutchman.
In the library-hall of the Philadelphia Library-Company, is one of the clocks made by that artist, having this inscription engraven on its face, “Johannes Fromanteel, Londini, fecit;” but without any date. This clock was a donation to the library-company, in the year 1804, by Mr. Samuel Hudson, of Philadelphia, whose ancestor purchased it at an auction in London, after the restoration of king Charles II. The traditional account of it is, that it belonged, originally, to the Cromwell family; and, when presented, was said to be one hundred and forty years old: but it could not have been the property of the protector, Cromwell, the time of whose death was between three and four years anterior to Fromanteel’s construction of a pendulum-clock.

97. Besides the testimony of so distinguished an astronomer as Mr. de Zach, already given, respecting the very great accuracy to which time-keepers have been brought, the following translation, taken from what the celebrated Lalande has said in his treatise Des Horloges Astronomiques, (in the second volume of his Astronomie,) furnishes some curious and interesting facts on that subject.
“Short (the mathematical instrument maker,) upon the occasion of the transit of mercury over the sun observed in 1753, assures us that he had found by many observations, that his clock had not varied more than one second, from the 22d of February to the 6th of May (Philos. Trans. 1753, p. 200;) so that, with a like pendulum, it is possible to obtain an exactness which, till this time, was thought incredible. There are English astronomers who have assured me,” continues Lalande, “that pendulum-clocks have been made which did not vary more than five″ in a year:97a but that does not appear to me to be yet established as a fact; the oils that one is obliged to use in them are sufficient, by the change of consistency they undergo, to prevent such preciseness. The count de Bruhl, a great amateur and a perfect connoisseur also, on the subject of time-pieces, shewed me in London a diary of the going of two pendulums of Mudge, one of the most celebrated clock-makers in London: in one, there was a difference of half a second a day, between winter and summer; and in the other a second. Mr. Aubert has a pendulum made by Shelton, which varies also nearly a second in the day, in extreme seasons. Picard, in 1671, had a clock which did not lose a second in two months. But, whatever may have been, since that period, the skill of the clock-makers of Paris, we cannot obtain such exactness, but by mere accident and an equality of temperature in the atmosphere that is very rare: now, the correctness of our clocks is a necessary consequence of their principles; but these do not go so far. Mr. Emery has observed two clocks beat the same second, during three months; they were, however, very near to each other, and probably had some influence on one another by means of their foot-board or support.”

97a. Even watches have been already brought to an inconceivable degree of exactness. Mr. Arnold and Mr. Emery made some, in the year 1786, which did not vary one second in a voyage of an hundred leagues.

98. This gentleman’s name is connected with another circumstance in relation to Mr. D. Rittenhouse, which deserves to be noticed. He is in possession of a finely-graduated thermometer, made by our Philosopher; on the scale of which is engraved, by him, the record of a memorable fact concerning the climate of Pennsylvania, referring by a mark to 22° below 0, of Fahrenheit’s scale; viz.—“Jan. 2. 1762—Great Cold in Pennsylvania.” This fact was ascertained by Mr. Rittenhouse, from a reference to the accurate Messrs. Masons and Dixon’s Journal; in which, such was stated to have been the degree of cold in the forks of the Brandywine (about thirty miles westward, and very little to the southward, from Philadelphia,) on the day mentioned.
Mr. Rittenhouse had noticed, that, at his Norriton Observatory, (in lat. 40° 9′ 31″ N.) the mercury in Fahrenheit’s thermometer, not exposed to the sun-shine but open to the air, was at 94½°, on the 5th of July 1769; “which,” says he, “was the greatest height it had ever been observed to rise to, at that place.” But the writer is informed by a judicious and attentive observer, that at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which is in lat. 40° 2′ 39″ N. (the long. of this borough-town is 5^h 1′ 4″ W. from Greenw.) the mercury rose by Fahrenheit’s scale, on the 7th of July, 1811, to 97½°. Admitting this to be correct, if 1½° be then deducted, for the extra heat of so large a town as Lancaster in comparison with a country-situation, there is in this case the great range of 118° by Fahrenheit’s scale, for the extremes of heat and cold in Pennsylvania.
The writer brought with him, from England, a meteorological diary kept in London, during the severe frost there, from the 7th day of January, 1776, to the 28th of the same month, both days inclusive. The greatest cold, during that period, was 15° and it is thus noted, in respect to the state of the atmosphere at the time; “Clear sky—intense cold—wind west.” The mercury rose on one day, within that time, to 34°. The mean degree of cold, in the same period, was there 26¾°.
The greatest cold at Philadelphia, during the same days of January, 1776, was at 17°, but the mercury rose there, on one of those days, to 48°. The mean degree of cold at Philadelphia, in this corresponding period of time, was 29⅓°; being about 2½° warmer (or rather, less cold,) than the general temperature of the weather in London, at the same time, in what was there called a “severe frost.” Eighty-five degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale is considered as a very extraordinary heat, in London: consequently, a range of 68° may be presumed to reach the extremes of heat and cold in England, in the latitude of nearly 52° N.98a
Notwithstanding the extremes of heat and cold, which thus appear in the climate of Pennsylvania, Mr. Jefferson remarks (in his Notes on Virginia,) that these extremes are greater at Paris than at Williamsburg, the hottest part of Virginia. Yet Williamsburg, which is only about 2¾° to the southward of Philadelphia, is nearly 11¾° further south than Paris.

98a. Since writing the above, the author has ascertained, that in London, during the four last years of the last century, Six’s thermometer, out of doors, averaged 49.6; that on the hottest day within that period, the mercury rose to 86; and that it fell, on the coldest day, to 4.

99. See a description of this Chronometer, in the Appendix.

100. Mr. Stanton died at Philadelphia, the 28th of June, 1770, aged sixty-two years. He was, for above forty years, a distinguished preacher among the people called Quakers; and is reputed to have been a man, “who, from his youth, had been a conspicuous example of Christian meekness, humility, and self-denial; a zealous promoter of the cause of religion, and the essential good of mankind.”
Some elegiac verses, under the title of a “poetic tribute” to the memory of this worthy man,—from the pen of a lady in Philadelphia,—were published in the Port Folio, for April 1813.

101. This letter contains, likewise, a short narrative of an occurrence which excited much feeling, and claimed a considerable portion of the public attention, at the time. As Mr. Rittenhouse’s account of the transaction referred to, will serve to shew that he was not an indifferent spectator of the political events of that early day; and, further, that he was zealously disposed to support the legitimate authority of the government, in order to suppress illegal and disorderly proceedings, subversive of the laws and dangerous to the public peace and safety; this part of his letter to Mr. Barton (of the 16th of February, 1764,) is also presented to the reader.
It will be recollected that what was called the Paxton Riot in Pennsylvania, in the year 1763, was occasioned by an attempt made by many of the inhabitants of a district in the upper end of Lancaster (now Dauphin) county, called Paxton, with some of their neighbours, to destroy a number of Indians resident in and near that county; who were extremely obnoxious to the Paxton people, by reason of the supposed treachery, if not actual hostility, of these Indians to the settlers on the Paxton frontier, in the war that had then recently terminated. These unfortunate Indians had, nevertheless, uniformly professed themselves to be friendly to the English, in that war; and were so reputed by the government of Pennsylvania: but finding themselves, notwithstanding, threatened with extermination by “the Paxton Boys” (as they were then called,)—by whom a few old men, women, and children had been destroyed, shortly before, at their homes,—they sought the protection of the government. Part of them were, accordingly, placed in the public prison in Lancaster, and the remainder at the barracks in Philadelphia, as places of security. Those in Lancaster, to the number of fourteen or fifteen, were soon after, as is well known, killed by the Paxton people, one of the prison doors having been forcibly broken open by them. The remnant of these persecuted Indians, who were in Philadelphia, were more fortunate than their brethren; they escaped the horrors of assassination: And it is to the expedition against these wretched fugitives—a mere handful of men, unarmed, and claiming from Christians an asylum from massacre,—that Mr. Rittenhouse refers in his letter.
“You are no doubt, long before this time, well acquainted,” said our young philosopher, “with every particular of the Paxtonian expedition to Philadelphia: nor need I tell you, that whatever information you may have through the channel of ——, will be abominably corrupt. About fifty of the scoundrels marched by my work-shop—I have seen hundreds of Indians travelling the country, and can with truth affirm, that the behaviour of these fellows was ten times more savage and brutal than theirs. Frightening women, by running the muzzles of their guns through windows, swearing and hallooing; attacking men without the least provocation; dragging them by the hair to the ground, and pretending to scalp them; shooting a number of dogs and fowls;—these are some of their exploits.
“I received a letter from sister E. soon after the alarm at Philadelphia was over, and will give you a part of it, which I doubt not will be agreeable to you.”—It is as follows.
—“On Monday morning between one and two o’clock, an express came to the governor, informing that the rebels were on their way, and that a great number of them were on this side the White Horse. There was one express after another, till there was certain intelligence that some of them were at Germantown. When the first express came, the bells were rung, the drums beat, and the constables were ordered to go from house to house, to knock up the inhabitants, and to bid them put candles at their doors: it had the appearance of all the houses being illuminated. Before day, there were above twenty men met at J. J.’s, and chose their officers. Before night they were increased to nearly an hundred; as were likewise most of the other companies: E—— and all our men were in captain Wood’s company. They all appeared to be in high spirits, and desirous to meet the rebels. On Tuesday, when the mayor and the other gentlemen set off for Germantown, the heads of the companies begged of them not to comply with any dishonourable terms, and told them—“Gentlemen, we are ready to go wherever you may command us; and we had much rather you would let us treat with them (the rebels) with our guns.”—On their return, there was a general murmur among the companies against the proceedings of our great men; they knew it, and there was a long harangue made by Mr. Chew: but it did not answer the end. On Wednesday morning I went to —-—, as usual; and on my return home, I stopped at our friend H. J.’s; when, on a sudden, the alarm-gun was fired, the bells began to ring, and the men called “to arms,” as loud as possible. I cannot describe, my dear brother, how I felt: we ran to the door, when to add to my fright, I saw E——, amidst hundreds of others, run by with his gun. They met at the court-house, formed themselves into regular companies, and marched up Second-street as far as the barracks; when they found it was a false alarm.
“It was a pleasing, though melancholy sight, to view the activity of our men. In less than a quarter of an hour, they were all on their march,—it is supposed above a thousand of them; and by all accounts, there were not ten —— among them. It was the common cry, while our men were parading—“What! not one —— among us!”—Instead of joining with others, they would sneak into corners, and applaud the “Paxton-boys.” Their behaviour on this occasion has made them appear blacker than ever.”
Concerning these extraordinary transactions, to which much importance was attached in their day, and which, moreover, constitute a curious and interesting occurrence in the history of Pennsylvania, in the time of our philosopher, the testimony of another respectable witness is added; a person, besides, who bore a principal part in arresting the progress of the insurrection referred to. On the 2d of June, 1765, Dr. Franklin, who was then in London, wrote a letter to the celebrated Henry Home, lord Kames, in which the following interesting circumstances are related, respecting what was called the Paxton Expedition: this letter is inserted entire in lord Woolhousie’s Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Lord Kames. The Doctor therein says—“In December (1763,) we had two insurrections of the back inhabitants of our province, by whom twenty poor Indians were murdered, that had from the first settlement of the province lived among us, under the protection of our government. This gave me a good deal of employment; for, as the rioters threatened further mischief, and their actions seemed to be approved by an increasing party, I wrote a pamphlet, entitled A Narrative, &c. to strengthen the hands of our weak government, by rendering the proceedings of the rioters unpopular and odious. This had a good effect: and afterwards, when a great body of them with arms marched towards the capital in defiance of the government, with an avowed resolution to put to death one hundred and forty Indian converts, then under its protection, I formed an association at the governor’s request, for his and their defence, we having no militia. Near one thousand of the citizens accordingly took arms: Governor Penn made my house for some time his head-quarters, and did every thing by my advice; so that, for about forty-eight hours, I was a very great man, as I had been once some years before, in a time of public danger. But the fighting face we put on, and the reasonings we used with the insurgents, (for I went, at the request of the governor and council, with three others, to meet and discourse them,) having turned them back, and restored quiet to the city, I became a less man than ever; for I had, by these transactions, made myself many enemies among the populace.”

102..fm rend=t The writer of these memoirs well remembers to have heard Mr. Rittenhouse, when fully matured in years, speak of the pleasure he derived from the reading of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, while a youth. It is, certainly, no faint compliment to the “well-told tale” of that “ingenious dreamer,” that it engaged the attention of David Rittenhouse, even at a very early period of his life: and that compliment is greatly enhanced by the following beautiful invocation, addressed to the long-since departed spirit of the humble, yet persecuted, the pious, yet fanciful Bunyan, by the amiable Cowper:—
“Oh thou, whom, borne on fancy’s eager wing,
Back to the season of life’s happy spring,
I pleas’d remember, and, while mem’ry yet
Holds fast her office here, can ne’er forget;
Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale
Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail;
Whose hum’rous vein, strong sense, and simple style;
Witty, and well-employ’d, and, like thy Lord,
Speaking in parables his slighted word;
I name thee not, lest so despis’d a name
Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame:
Yet, ev’n in transitory life’s late day,
That mingles all my brown with sober gray,
Revere the man, whose Pilgrim marks the road,
And guides the Progress of the soul to God.”

103. This was about the year 1764.

104. In the earlier part of this interval of time, and before he became more seriously engaged in those great works and researches, the construction of his Orrery, and the Observation of the Transit of Venus with the operations preparatory to it, which about that time engrossed his attention, he occasionally amused himself with matters rather speculative than practical: though he very seldom devoted any considerable portion of his time to things which he did not consider as being in some degree useful.
The following is one of those instances in which his active mind was diverted from severer studies, to some objects of a more playful nature.
In the year 1767, some ingenious country-gentleman published in Messrs. Hall and Sellers’s paper, under the signature of T.T. the result of calculations he had made on Archimedes’s famous vaunting assertion, Δος που στω, και την γην κινησω. Mr. Rittenhouse published, some short time after, calculations (or rather the result of calculations) of his own, on the same problem. This appeared in a piece under the signature of “A Mechanic,” dated the 8th of October, 1767: and a reply to it, by T. T. dated October the 29th, appeared in the same paper. These little speculations will be found in the Appendix. It is not improbable that Mr. Rittenhouse, under the disguise of “A Mechanic,” appeared in print on this occasion, for the purpose of drawing the attention of ingenious men to subjects of this nature.

105. It was between the years 1766 and 1770—the interval of time above mentioned,—that the two important circumstances occurred, which gave great celebrity to the reputation of Mr. Rittenhouse, as an astronomer: these were the Construction of the Orrery invented by him, and the admirable result of his observations of the Transit of Venus, as published in the Philosophical Society’s Transactions.
Amidst those objects of importance in which he was principally occupied, he occasionally amused himself with matters of minor consequence. Among other things, he contrived and made, in the beginning of the year 1767, an ingeniously contrived thermometer, constructed on the principle of the expansion and contraction of metals, by heat and cold, respectively. This instrument had, under glass, a face upon which was a graduated semi-circle: the degrees of heat and cold corresponded with those of Fahrenheit’s thermometer; and these were also correspondently designated, by an index, moving on the centre of the arch. Its square (or rather parallelogramical) form, its flatness and thinness, and its small size—together with its not being liable to the least sensible injury or irregularity, from any position in which it might be placed,—rendered it safely portable; insomuch, that it could be conveniently carried in the pocket.
He presented one of these metaline Thermometers to Dr. Peters, in June 1767: Another, which he made for himself, was a considerable time in the hands of Mr. Barton, at Lancaster. They were found to agree very well with Fahrenheit’s. In a letter to Mr. Barton, dated the 26th of July 1769, he said—“You will oblige me by sending the metaline thermometer by..., and let me know the greatest height you have seen it, this season, Fahrenheit’s thermometer, in my Observatory, not exposed to the sunshine but very open to the air, was 94½° on the 5th of this month, at 3 in the afternoon; which is the highest I have ever seen it.”

106. The Rev. Ebenezer Kinnersley, A. M. Professor of English and Oratory in the college of Philadelphia. This venerable and worthy man, who was a clergyman of the Baptist church, was a very eminent Electrician. In this branch of philosophy, he was an able lecturer and ingenious experimentalist: and perhaps to no person—at least in America,—were his cotemporaries more indebted, than to him, for the light which he shed, at a very early day, on this interesting and pleasing science.

107. According to the American historian, Marshall, Lord Berkeley assigned his interest in the Jersies to Penn and his three associates, in the year 1674; and they, soon perceiving the inconvenience of a joint property, divided the province, in 1676, with Carteret, who still retained his interest: to him they released East-Jersey; and received from him, in return, a conveyance for the western part of the province. The Duke of York resigned the government of East Jersey to the proprietor, retaining that of West-Jersey as an appendage to New-York, until August 1680; when, on a reference to Sir William Jones, the title was decided against the Duke: after which, he formally released all claim upon East-Jersey. Soon after this, Carteret transferred his rights to Penn, and eleven other persons of the same religious persuasion, who immediately conveyed one half of their interest to James Drummond, Earl of Perth, and eleven others; and these, in March 1683, obtained a conveyance from the Duke of York directly to themselves.—During these transactions, continual efforts were made to re-annex the Jerseys to the province of New-York. [See Marshall’s Introduction to the Life of Washington, ch. vi.]

108. There will not be another transit of Venus over the Sun’s disk, until the 8th of December, 1874; which, it is probable few persons now living will have an opportunity of observing, astronomically: And from that time, down to the 14th of June, A. D. 2984, inclusively,—a period of upwards of eleven centuries,—the same planet will pass over the Sun only eighteen times. There will be one other such transit of this planet, within the present century; after which there will not be another, during the term of one hundred and twenty-one years and an half. [See Table of the Transits of Venus over the Sun, in Lalande’s Astronomie; vol. ii.]

109. There had been but one of these transits of Venus over the Sun, during the course of about one hundred and thirty years preceding the transit of 1769; and, for upwards of seven centuries, antecedently to the commencement of that period, the same planet had passed over the Sun’s disk no more than thirteen times. [See Lalande’s Table, before referred to.]

110. Jeremiah Horrox and William Crabtree, two Englishmen, were the observers of the Transit of Venus of 1639.

111. It was not until the year 1786, that Mr. Rittenhouse built the house at the north-west corner of Arch and (Delaware) Seventh streets, in Philadelphia, where he resided during the remainder of his life: but probably it was some few years earlier that he erected his Observatory, a small but pretty convenient octagonal building, of brick, in the garden adjacent to his dwelling-house. Its situation was not an ineligible one, when the building was first put up: but its commodiousness and utility were probably much diminished, by the erection, not long afterwards, of some large houses near it; and it is presumable, that its usefulness in any degree, for the purposes of an Observatory, could have continued but a little while beyond the duration of its late proprietor’s life, by reason of the rapid increase of the number of lofty houses in the vicinity. Indeed it lately became extremely probable, on considering the great enlargement of Philadelphia within the last twenty-five years, that the future augmentation of the population and extension of improvements in this beautiful and hitherto flourishing city, would, in a very few years, render the late Observatory of Mr. Rittenhouse wholly useless for astronomical purposes; and, in the event of the surrounding ground and adjacent buildings being alienated from his family, improper for any other.
This was the Observatory noticed by Mr. Lalande, when (in his Astronomie, published in 1792,) he made this remark, treating of the numerous Observatories in different parts of the world—“In America, I know of no Observatory but that of Mr. Rittenhouse at Philadelphia.”
The Observatory at Norriton, mentioned in the text, was a temporary erection; and was disused on his removal to Philadelphia, soon after. The one put up in the State-House Gardens in that city on the same occasion, was likewise a temporary edifice, constructed of wood.

112. On an address of the Philosophical Society to the general assembly, dated the 15th of October, 1768, the latter “Resolved, That a sum, not exceeding one hundred pounds sterling, be provided and appropriated for purchasing a reflecting telescope with a micrometer, for the purpose mentioned in the said address” (observing the Transit of Venus, then near at hand,) “and, afterwards, for the use of the house; and that the speaker do write to Benjamin Franklin, Esq. in London, to purchase the same.”

113. On a similar address of the Philosophical Society, dated the 7th of February, 1769, the assembly granted them one hundred pounds, “to be laid out towards defraying the expenses necessary for observing the (then) ensuing Transit of Venus.” This grant was made on the 11th of February, 1769.
But the sum then granted proving very inadequate to the object, the society petitioned the assembly on the 11th of February, 1773; stating, that the erecting the different observatories, fitting up instruments, engraving various plates, and publishing the different transit papers alone, cost the society near 400l. and praying assistance to discharge that debt.

114. Mr. Lalande, in the preface to his Astronomie (3d edit. 1792,) mentions, that he did not then know of any other observatory in America than that of Mr. Rittenhouse.

115. This was one instance among many of the munificence of Mr. Penn to the College of Philadelphia, and of his zealous wish to promote the interests of science in Pennsylvania. The trustees of the college say, in a letter written to Mr. Penn the 1st of August, 1769, thanking him for his donation of the fine instrument above mentioned, together with a pair of “Adams’s new-invented Globes;” “We have likewise the pleasure to acknowledge a fresh instance of your benevolence, in sending us a chemical apparatus under the care of Dr. Rush.” “The many great and valuable favours this College has received at your hands, have always been conferred in a manner which has rendered them peculiarly acceptable; and cannot fail to leave the most lasting impressions of gratitude and esteem in the heart of every person concerned in the institution.”

116. Mr. Lalande (in his Astronomie) has been careful to mention, that the celebrated astronomer Hevelius possessed a similar merit. He constructed, himself, the very large telescopes and other instruments, described (with plates) in his great work entitled, Machina Cœlestis, and with which he furnished the Observatory that he established at his own residence, in the year 1641. Hevelius (whose true name was John Hoelké.) was the son of a brewer; but was well educated. He was born at Dantzic the 28th of January, 1611: and after having made the tour of England, France and Germany, from 1630 to 1634, he was, on his return to his native city, occupied for some time in the affairs of that little republic; of which he officiated as consul, in 1651. He died on the anniversary of his birth-day, at the age of seventy-six years.

117. For some of the reasons which induced the writer to describe the instruments used on that occasion, see Note 125.

118. In addition to this publicly declared testimony of Dr. Smith, to the merits of Mr. Rittenhouse on that occasion, are the following extracts of a letter from the Dr. to Mr. Barton, dated July the 8th, 1769.
“Mr. Jesse Lukens left my house on Tuesday evening, at half an hour past six, where he waited till I scrawled out a pretty long letter to Mr. Rittenhouse, for whom my esteem encreases the more I see him; and I shall long for an opportunity of doing him justice for his elegant preparations to observe the Transit, which left Mr. Lukens and me nothing to do, but to sit down to our telescopes. This justice I have already in part done him, in a long letter to the proprietor” (Thomas Penn, Esq.) “yesterday, and I hope Mr. Rittenhouse will not deprive us of the opportunity of doing it in a more public manner, in the account we are to draw up next week.”
“I did not chuse to send Mr. Rittenhouse’s original projection of the Transit, as it is a society paper, to be inserted in our minutes: but I have enclosed an exact copy. Pray desire him to take the sun’s diameter again carefully, and examine the micrometer by it. The mean of our diameters come out, Hor. Diam. 31′ 34″, 3—Polar Diam. 31′ 32″, 8—Ven. Diam. 57, 98.—The Sun’s is bigger than the Naut. Almanac gives: That of Venus very well. The diameters of the State-house micrometer come out less. I have compared some of our” (the Norriton) “micrometer-observations with those made in town, and do not find a difference of one second: but all theirs do not seem to have been taken with equal care, and differ from each other sometimes; a fault I do not find among ours. Our nearest distance of the centres comes out, I think, 10′ 3″, in which we agree within about one second with their nearest distance: and our time of the nearest approach of the centres, viz. 5^h 20′ 32″, reduced to mean time, is within one minute of the time marked for their nearest approach.”
“With my compliments to Mr. Rittenhouse and family, I am, in great haste,” &c.
Mr. Barton was then at Norriton, and Dr. Smith wrote from Philadelphia.

119. On the 26th of the same month he thus addressed Mr. Barton on the subject:—
“I have at last done with astronomical observations and calculations for the present, and sent copies of all my papers to Dr. Smith, who, I presume, has drawn up a complete account of our Observations on the Transit of Venus: this I hope you will see, when you come to Philadelphia. I have delineated the Transit, according to our observations, on a very large scale, made many calculations, and drawn all the conclusions I thought proper to attempt, until some foreign observations come to hand, to compare with ours; all of which have been, or will be laid before the Philosophical Society. The Doctor has constantly seemed so desirous of doing me justice, in the whole affair, that I suppose I must not think of transmitting any separate account to England.”

120. The first volume of the Society’s Transactions contains (p. 125,) among other observations of the transit of Venus in 1769, those made at Baskenridge in New-Jersey, by the late Earl of Sterling. William Alexander, the gentleman referred to, and who held this title, was (it is believed) a native of New-York. It is presumable that the title he bore was one to which he had an equitable right: It was recognized in America, the country of his birth, from the time of his first assumption of it until his death, although his claim to that honour was not juridically established in Great Britain, where, in official acts of that government, he was styled “William Alexander, Esq. claiming to be Earl of Sterling.” He was descended from Sir William Alexander, in the reign of James I., to whom that monarch made a grant of the province of Nova Scotia, on the 20th of September, 1621. On the 12th of July, 1625, Sir William obtained from King Charles I. a grant of the soil, lordship and domains, of that province, which, with the exception of “Port-Royal,” (Annapolis, on the Bay of Fundy,) formerly the capital of the province, he conveyed on the 30th of April, 1630, to Sir Claude de St. Etienne, lord of la Tour and Uarre, and to his son Sir Charles de St. Etienne, lord of St. Deniscourt, on condition that they should continue subjects to the crown of Scotland. This Sir William was appointed by Charles I. commander in chief of Nova-Scotia. Soon after the institution of the order of Baronets of Nova-Scotia, he had been advanced to that dignity by Charles I. viz. on the 21st of May, 1625; when the king conferred on him the privilege of coining copper-money. In 1626, he was created Viscount Sterling: and on the 14th of June, 1633, he was further promoted by the same king to the Earldom of Stirling.
The late Lord Stirling, who was seated at Baskenridge in New-Jersey, inherited his Baronetage and titles of Nobility, as heir-male to Henry, the fourth Earl. He married Sarah, daughter of Philip Livingston, Esq. of New-York, by whom he had issue two daughters; Lady Mary, married to —— Watts, Esq. of New-York, and Lady Catharine, first married to William Duer, Esq. of New-York, and after his decease to William Nelson, Esq. of the same city.
This nobleman appears to have been in some degree skilled in astronomy, and was reputed a good observer. In the first volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society there is contained, besides his lordship’s observations of the transit of Venus, a letter from him to Dr. Smith, communicating an account of his having discovered, on the 28th of June, 1770, a comet, which he observed astronomically on that and the three succeeding nights; being the same that Mr. Rittenhouse first saw on the 25th of that month; and respecting which, there are two letters from him to Dr. Smith, in the same volume.
Immediately before the American revolution, lord Sterling was one of the king’s council in New-Jersey; and held also, under the crown, the appointment of surveyor-general for the eastern division of that province. With the talents of a philosopher, he united those of the soldier: On the 1st of March, 1776, his lordship was appointed a brigadier-general in the continental army, and was afterwards promoted to the rank of major-general. He was esteemed a brave and faithful officer, and served with reputation; but he died before the close of the war.
In the same volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, with lord Stirling’s observations, there are, independent of those made under the direction of that society, the observations of the transit of Venus in 1769, made at Cambridge in New-England, by John Winthrop, Esq. F. R. S. and member of the American Philosophical Society, Hollisian Professor of Mathematics in Harvard-College—(see p. 124;) likewise, the result of those made by captain Holland and Mr. St. Germain, at and near Quebec; and by other skilful observers, at sundry places in Europe and the West-Indies; all reported (p. 120) by a committee of the American Philosophical Society.

121. Afterwards Dr. Maskelyne.—“To the abilities and indefatigable attention of this celebrated astronomer,” says the Rev. Mr. Vince (in his great work on astronomy,) “nautical astronomy is altogether indebted for its present state of perfection. Of our (the English) Nautical Almanac, that great astronomer, M. de la Lande, thus writes: “On a fait á Bologne, á Vienne, á Berlin, á Milan; mais Le Nautical Almanac de Londres, est l’ephemeride la plus parfaite qu’il y ait jamais eu.” He has established the Newtonian doctrine of universal attraction upon the firmest foundation, by his experiments upon Schehallien.121a His regular observations of the sun, moon, planets, and fixed stars, which are every year published, are allowed to possess an unrivalled degree of accuracy; and we may consider them as the basis of future improvements of the tables of the planetary motions. M. de la Lande, in his Astronomie (vol. ii. p. 121. last edit.) speaking of astronomical observations, says—“Le recueil le plus moderne et le plus précieux de tous est celui de M. Maskelyne, Astronome Royal d’Angleterre, qui commence á 1765, et qui forme déja deux volumes in folio jusqu’ á 1786. La precision de ces observations est si grande, qu’on trouve souvent la même second pour l’ascension droite d’une planete dédecite de différentes étoiles, quoiqu’on y emploie la mesure du temps.”; His catalogue of fundamental stars is an invaluable treasure. These, and his other various improvements in this science, entitle him to the most distinguished rank amongst astronomers, and will render his name illustrious, as long as the science of astronomy shall continue to be cultivated.”
Of Lalande himself, whose name often occurs in the following pages, Mr. Vince thus speaks:—“To that celebrated astronomer, M. de la Lande, the world is indebted for the most important improvements in the science of astronomy. Through so extensive a field, he has left no track unbeaten; almost every part has received improvements from him. His system of astronomy is invaluable, and has tended far more to the general promotion of that science than all other works which ever appeared upon the subject. The labours of this great astronomer will perpetuate his name.” See Vince’s Complete System of Astronomy, vol. ii. p. 288 and 289.

121a. The Schehallien is a mountain in Scotland, being one of the highest points in that range of mountains called the Grampian-Hills. The elevation of the Schehallien above the surface of the sea is about 1760 feet. W. B.

122. Mr. Vince observes, in his Complete System of Astronomy, (vol. i. p. 419) that the Transit of Venus affords a very accurate method of finding the place of the node; and this he verifies expressly by calculations founded on the observations made by Mr. Rittenhouse at Norriton, in the year 1769.

123. To so honourable a testimony, in favour of the merits of the Pennsylvania observers of this Transit, as that of Mr. Maskelyne, the acknowledgments of many other eminent foreign astronomers might be superadded: And the Rev. Dr. Smith, addressing himself to the American Philosophical Society, observes, “that societies of the first reputation in Europe are not ashamed to place our labours on a footing with their own; freely acknowledging, that we have been chiefly instrumental in ascertaining that great desideratum in astronomy, the sun’s parallax; and, consequently, the dimensions of the solar system.” See his Oration, delivered before the society, Jan. 22, 1773.

124. The compliment here paid by the Astronomer-Royal to the Hon. T. Penn, proprietary of the late province of Pennsylvania, for the zeal he manifested in promoting the Pennsylvania Observations of the Transit of Venus, was well merited,—as the detailed accounts of that highly interesting phænomenon abundantly shew.
Nor was that the only instance in which Mr. Penn discovered his attachment to the reputation and prosperity of that extensive American territory, which continues to bear the name of his family. He was, on various occasions, a liberal and disinterested benefactor to public institutions in Pennsylvania: as a proof of which, his aggregated donations to the College of Philadelphia, prior to the American war, amounting to about twelve thousand dollars—besides a grant of the manor of Perkessie in Bucks county, containing upwards of 3000 acres,—need alone be mentioned.
But it is within the knowledge of many persons in the midst of whom these memoirs are penned, that even the Juliana Library Company, in Lancaster (an inland and secondary town of Pennsylvania) experienced repeated proofs of the munificence of Mr. Penn, and also of his late truly noble and excellent consort, after whom that institution was named. The writer himself, well knows, from the tenor of numerous letters, not only from Mr. but Lady Juliana Penn, (who honoured the Rev. Mr. Barton with their friendship and correspondence, for the space of twenty years,—a patronage which was continued to a member of his family, long after Mr. Penn’s death,) the generous and unremitted attention of both, to whatever seemed likely to promote the honour or the interest of Pennsylvania.
Thomas Penn, Esq. died on the 21st of March, 1775, when he had just completed the seventy-fourth year of his age. He was the survivor of all the children of the illustrious founder of Pennsylvania; “whose virtues, as well as abilities, he inherited in an eminent degree,”—as was justly observed in an obituary notice published soon after his decease. Lady Juliana, his widow, survived him many years.
In the Pennsylvania Gazette (then published by Messrs. Hall and Sellers, but originally by Franklin and Hall,) for May 17, 1775, appeared the following just tribute to the memory of Mr. Penn.
“He had the principal direction of the affairs of this government for half a century, and saw such an increase of population, arts, and improvements in it, as during the like period, perhaps no man, before him, ever beheld in a country of his own. He rejoiced at the sight, was a kind landlord, and gave a liberal, often a magnificent encouragement, to our various public institutions. The Hospital, the College, our different Libraries and Religious Societies, can witness the truth of this: For he did not confine himself to sect or party; but, as became his station, and the genius of his father’s benevolent policy, he professed himself a friend to universal liberty, and extended his bounty to all. In short, as the grave, which generally stops the tongue of flattery, should open the mouth of Justice, we may be permitted to conclude his character by saying,—that he was both a great and a good man.”
The writer of these Memoirs hopes he will not be censured by any Pennsylvanian of generous feelings, for introducing, in the Appendix, some elegiac verses (by an unknown hand,) in commemoration of the virtues of this worthy man; who was not only a munificent benefactor to this country, and a bountiful patron of the Memorialist himself, as well as his family; but who, also, took a very friendly interest in the reputation and prosperity of Mr. Rittenhouse. These verses were published in The Pennsylvania Magazine, for Oct. 1775.

125. In addition to the honourable testimony of the Astronomer-Royal, in favour of the Pennsylvania Observers of the Transit of Venus, is the following eulogy of another eminent English astronomer,—as communicated by Dr. Franklin to Dr. T. Bond, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Philosophical Society, in a letter from London dated the 5th of Feb. 1772. The Rev. Mr. Ludlam, the gentleman referred to, and whom Dr. Franklin styles “a most learned man and ingenious mechanic”—in a paper published in the Gentleman’s Magazine (and a copy of which, subscribed by himself, was sent by him to the Society,) giving an account of the Society’s Transactions, more especially their Observations of the Transit of Venus,—applauds both the General Assembly and the late Proprietaries of Pennsylvania, for the countenance and assistance they gave to the making those Observations.——“No astronomers,” said Mr. Ludlam, “could better deserve all possible encouragement; whether we consider their care and diligence in making the Observations, their fidelity in relating what was done, or the clearness and accuracy of their reasonings on this curious and difficult subject.” He then mentions, in very honourable terms, the papers of Mr. Rittenhouse, Dr. Smith, Dr. Ewing, and Mr. Biddle, who drew up the several accounts of the Observations made at Norriton, Philadelphia, and Cape-Henlopen; and adds, that “they have very honestly given not only the Result of their Observations, but the Materials also, that others may examine and judge for themselves; an example worthy of imitation by those European astronomers, who are so very shy of giving particulars, and vouch for their Instruments and Observations in general terms.”
The same gentleman, in a letter dated at Leicester (in England,) January the 25th, 1772, and transmitted to the Philosophical Society by Dr. Franklin, wrote thus:—“The more I read the Transactions of your Society, the more I honour and esteem the members of it. There is not another Society in the world, that can boast of a member such as Mr. Rittenhouse: theorist enough to encounter the problems of determining (from a few Observations) the Orbit of a Comit; and also mechanic enough to make, with his own hands, an Equal-Altitude Instrument, a Transit-Telescope, and a Time-piece. I wish I was near enough to see his mechanical apparatus. I find he is engaged in making a curious Orrery. May I ask,” &c.
As further evidence of the high estimation in which the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, and particularly of the Observers of the Transit, were held abroad, Dr. Wrangel, an eminent and learned Swedish clergyman, wrote thus to Dr. Smith from Stockholm, under the date of Oct. 18, 1771:—“I have been agreeably surprised to observe the rapid progress of your American Society, of which I esteem it a great honour to be counted a member,” &c.—“Your accurate Observations of the Transit of Venus have given infinite satisfaction to our (Swedish) astronomers; as will the rest of your Transactions, to the literary world, when they come to be further known.”

126. According to Mr. Lalande, (in his Astronomie, vol. ii.) the transit of Venus over the Sun, in 1639, observed by only Messrs. Horrox and Crabtree, two Englishmen, and which was the first ever observed, was seen in consequence of a fortunate accidental circumstance. He says, that Horrox had been occupied in making calculations for an almanack, from the Tables of Lansbergius, which are much less perfect than the Rudolphine Tables: that these Tables of Lansbergius were in an error of 16′ for the latitude of Venus, while the Rudolphine Tables had an error of only 8′; but the one of Lansbergius made Venus pass on the sun in such a way, as that the transit ought to be visible; whereas the tables of Kepler represented the planet as passing below him; and thus it was, remarks Lalande, that bad tables occasioned a good observation. Relying on these tables, which Lansbergius had extolled with a confidence likely to produce imposition, Horrox prepared himself to observe that transit; and on the 24th of November, it took place at the time he expected, Venus being about half an hour on the sun when he set. He had sent on the occasion to his friend Crabtree, who was at Manchester, some miles from Hoole: and he observed the transit, likewise; though very imperfectly, by reason of intervening clouds. W. B.

127. Flamsted, Halley, Bradley and Bliss, successively occupied the royal observatory at Greenwich, from the time of its institution by Charles II.; and, in the year 1765, the last of these eminent men was succeeded in the place of Astronomer-Royal, by Nevil Maskelyne, B. D. a man who, in the words of the profound French astronomer, Lalande, “has sustained perfectly the reputation of that famous observatory.”
The scientific world are indebted to this excellent practical astronomer for the publication of the Nautical Almanack; and, in a great measure, for the perfection of the lunar method of ascertaining the longitude at sea. “His unwearied exertions in this great cause of humanity and science,” as the compilers of the New Edinburgh Encyclopedia (in the article Astronomy) observe, “entitle him to the gratitude of the remotest posterity.”

128. It appears that the difference of the meridians of the Greenwich and Paris Observatories, is 9′ 20″ as assumed by Lalande. This was ascertained by the result of the measurement of the distance between those Observatories, made sometime about the year 1786 or 1787, under the sanction of the British and French governments, respectively; and this difference of meridians corresponds with what Dr. Maskelyne had before stated it to be. The last mentioned astronomer shewed, in 1787, that the latitude of Greenwich is 51° 28′ 40″.

129. In relation to Paris, Mr. Lalande calculates the longitude of Philadelphia at 5^h 9′ 56″, according to Mr. Rittenhouse; and its latitude, as being 39° 5′7 10.

130. In Mr. Rittenhouse’s “Delineation of the Transit,” &c. published in the first volume of the Philosophical Society’s Transactions, it appears that he assumed the latitude of the Norriton Observatory to be 40° 9′ 56″.

131. See Martin’s Philosophia Britannica, lect. xi. note 141. Though “Orrery” be a modern name, the invention of such machines as it is now applied to, is of a very early date. The first planetarium or orrery, of which we have any account, was the famous machine of Archimedes. This consisted, as Cicero (in his Tusculan Questions) asserts, of a sphere, of an hollow globular surface, of glass, within which was some ingenious mechanism, to exhibit the motions of the moon, the sun, and all the planets then known. Very imperfect as it must necessarily have been in other respects, it was radically erroneous, in being adapted to the Ptolomaic system. This is described in Latin verse, by the poet Claudius Claudianus, of Alexandria, who flourished about four centuries after the Christian era, and more than six centuries after the Syracusean philosopher.
Cicero, in his book De Naturâ Deorum, mentions one invented by Posidonius the Stoic, in his time, and about eighty years before the birth of Christ. He describes it as a “sphere,”—“in every revolution of which, the motions of the sun, moon, and five planets were the same as in the heavens, each day and night.”
Nothing further is heard of orreries or spheres, until about five hundred and ten years after Christ, when Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Bœthius, the Roman Consul, (who was also a Christian, and a Peripatetic Philosopher,) is said to have contrived one. Theodoric, king of the Goths, calls it “Machinam Mundo gravidam, Cœlum gestabile, Rerum Compendium”: But Bœthius was, nevertheless, put to death by this Gothic king, A. D. 524. A long and dismal reign of barbarism and ignorance having succeeded this period, no further mention is made of any thing in the nature of a planetarium, for about one thousand years. See Note 95.

132. In the work, entitled, “A new and general Biographical Dictionary,” &c. published in 1761, the Invention of Graham’s Planetarium is attributed to the celebrated Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery; and the compilers of that work cite this supposed Invention of Lord Orrery, “as an indubitable proof of his mechanical genius.” On this authority, the compilers of the British Encyclopædia (reprinted in Philadelphia by Mr. Dobson,) in the very words of the Biographical Dictionary, make the nobleman from whom the first English Orrery derives its name, the Inventor. But it seems to be now pretty generally admitted, that his lordship was only the Patron of the machine, made for George I. by Mr. Rowley.

133. This accomplished nobleman, who was also the fourth Earl of Cork, in Ireland, and the third Earl of Burlington, in England, was born in the year 1695, and died in 1753. He was a great encourager of the liberal arts, possessed an extraordinary taste and skill in architecture, and was animated by a most exalted public spirit.

134. Mr. Martin (in his Philosophia Britannica) says: “The Orrery, though a modern name, has somewhat of obscurity in respect to its origin; some persons deriving it from a Greek word, which imports to see or view:” “But others say, that Sir Richard Steele first gave this name to an instrument of this sort, which was made by Mr. Rowley for the late Earl of Orrery, and shewed only the movement of one or two of the heavenly bodies. From hence many people have imagined, that this machine owed its invention to that noble lord.” This Orrery was a large one; and, although it is represented by Mr. Martin as a very defective machine, it was purchased by King George I. at the price of one thousand guineas.

135. Besides the Orrery here referred to, as the invention of the celebrated mechanic and watchmaker, Mr. George Graham, a like machine was afterwards contrived by Mr. James Ferguson, an eminent Scotch mechanic and astronomer, and another planetarium of the same kind, by Mr. William Jones, an ingenious mathematical instrument maker, of London. From the planetarium or orrery of Graham, however, as a model, all the modern orreries, prior to Mr. Rittenhouse’s, appear to have been taken. The one constructed by Mr. Rowley is said to be very similar to that invented by Dr. Stephen Hales.
But the idea of a planetarium, somewhat similar to the Rittenhouse-orrery, seems to have been conceived by Huygens, who died in 1695. A collection of this celebrated philosopher’s works was printed at Leyden in the year 1724 and 1728: and in these will be found the description of a planetarium; “a machine” (says Lalande, in speaking of the one contemplated by Huygens,) “which represents, by wheel-work, the revolutions of the planets around the sun and of the moon around the earth, in their durations and natural dimensions; with their excentricities, their inequalities, and their inclinations towards the ecliptic.” See Lalande’s Astron.

136. Mr. Jefferson remarks, in his Notes on Virginia, that “Mr. Rittenhouse’s model of the planetary system has the plagiary appellation of an Orrery.” This was, undoubtedly, a plagiary name, in its relation to Graham’s Planetarium, of which Lord Orrery was the supposed inventor: but the charge of plagiarism does not properly apply to the same name, when bestowed by Mr. Rittenhouse himself, on the grand machine of his own invention and construction. How improper soever this name may have been in its first application to a planetarium, it has since been generally applied to similar machines; and it has thus acquired an appropriate signification in relation to them. Mr. Rittenhouse did not choose to depart from the appellation in common use, in naming a machine for surpassing, in ingenuity of contrivance, accuracy and utility, any thing of the kind ever before constructed; yet, in all those points of excellence, he was the inventor of that admirable machine, which has been generally denominated, by others, “the Rittenhouse Orrery.”

137. See Note 131.

138. See A Compendious System of Natural Philosophy, &c. by J. Rowning, M. A. part iv. chap. 15.

139. The Hon. Thomas Penn, of Stoke-Poges, in Buckinghamshire, heretofore one of the Proprietaries of the former province of Pennsylvania. This gentleman was then usually styled, in Pennsylvania, “The Proprietor.”

140. This design was, however, finally abandoned.

141. One of these valuable clocks, which is of a large size, with an accurate little planetarium attached to its face and placed above the dial-plate,141a was made for the late Mr. Joseph Potts, of Philadelphia county, who paid for it, as the writer is informed, six hundred and forty dollars. In the spring of the year 1774, it was purchased by the late Mr. Thomas Prior, of Philadelphia; to whom, it is said, general Sir William Howe made an offer of one hundred and twenty guineas for it, shortly before the evacuation of that city, in 1778. It is also said, that Don Joseph de Jaudenes, late minister of Spain to the United States, offered Mr. Prior eight hundred dollars for this clock, with a view of presenting it to his sovereign. Mr. Prior, however, retained it until his death, in the spring of the year 1801: after which, it passed through two other hands, successively, into the possession of Professor Barton, of Philadelphia, whose property it now is.

141a. The area of the face of the dial plate is twenty inches square, and the motions and places of the planets of our system are represented on a circular area of eight inches in diameter.

142. It appears that Mr. Barton must have transmitted to the honourable Mr. T. Penn, in London, a description of the Orrery, very soon after it was publicly communicated to the Philosophical Society in Philadelphia; for, a letter from Mr. Penn to that gentleman, dated July 22, 1768, contains this remark—“The account you give me of Mr. Rittenhouse’s Orrery, is what I could not have imagined could be executed in Pennsylvania; and I shall be much pleased to see a copper-plate of it, for which I would make that gentleman a present, for his encouragement; or, perhaps he may be induced to bring it hither, and exhibit it, by publicly lecturing on it.”
Had Mr. Rittenhouse taken an Orrery to England, and it appears by his letters of March 15, 1771, and Feb. 3, 1772, quoted in the text, that he had seriously intended going thither, he would, very probably, have derived great emolument, as well as fame, by delivering lectures on astronomy, adapted to his orrery; and it is probable, that, in addition to the public encouragement he might reasonably have calculated upon, Mr. Penn would have patronised him, with his usual liberality. Of the disposition of that worthy gentleman to befriend him, Mr. Rittenhouse seems to have been fully sensible: for, in a letter of the 11th of December, 1768, to Mr. Barton, he said—“I am very desirous to send Mr. Penn something: as the orrery is not finished, perhaps a description of it, with draughts of the clock I have just made, may answer the purpose, together with some little instrument: I shall be glad to have your thoughts on the matter.” It may be proper here to remark, that no engraving, or drawing, could give an adequate idea of the orrery: and that the clock, mentioned by Mr. Rittenhouse, was one of those of which a short notice is introduced, immediately after the original description of the orrery, in the text.

143. The glass-house mentioned in the text, was erected several years prior to the American revolutionary war, at the village of Manheim, about twelve miles from the borough of Lancaster, by Mr. Henry William Stiegel, an ingenious and enterprising German gentleman. Glass of a very good quality and workmanship, was made at that glass-house; as will appear by the following extracts from a letter of Mr. Rittenhouse to Mr. Barton, written in the summer of 1771, and acknowledging the receipt of a barometer-tube executed there. He says—“I am obliged to you for the glass tube; it will make a pretty barometer, though the bore is somewhat too small. I have compared it with an English tube, and do not think the preference can, with any reason, be given to the latter.” And in the same letter, he requests Mr. Barton to procure for him, from the glass-house, “some tubes of a size fit for spirit-levels.” “The bore,” says he, “must be half an inch in diameter, and from four to eight inches in length; as straight as possible, and open at one end only.”
While Mr. Stiegel was thus early and meritoriously carrying on the manufacture of glass, he was also engaged in manufacturing iron at Elizabeth-Furnace in the vicinity, which then belonged to him. But he proved unfortunate in his extensive undertakings, and the glass-works have not since been in operation. The foundery of Elizabeth, together with the great establishment of iron-works connected with it, and of which Robert Coleman, Esq. of Lancaster, is now the proprietor, are well known.

144. Dr. Franklin is said to have first met with the Pulse-Glass in Germany, and to have introduced it into England with some improvement of his own.

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