CHAPTER II
FLAMSTEED
For the first century of its existence, the lives of its Astronomers Royal formed practically the history of the Royal Observatory. During this period, the Observatory was itself so small that the Astronomer Royal, with a single assistant, sufficed for the entire work. Everything, therefore, depended upon the ability, energy, and character of the actual director. There was no large organized staff, established routine, or official tradition, to keep the institution moving on certain lines, irrespective of the personal qualities of the chief. It was specially fortunate, therefore, that the first four Astronomers Royal, Flamsteed, Halley, Bradley, and Maskelyne (for Bliss, the immediate successor of Bradley, reigned for so short a time that he may be practically left out of the count), were all men of the most conspicuous ability.
It will be convenient to divide the history of the first seven Astronomers Royal into three sections. In the first, we have the founder, John Flamsteed, a pathetic and interesting figure, whom we seem to know with especial clearness, from the fulness of the memorials which he has left to us. He was succeeded by the man who was, indeed, best fitted to succeed him, but whom he most hated. The second to the sixth Astronomers Royal formed what we might almost speak of as a dynasty, each in turn nominating his successor, who had entered into more or less close connection with the Observatory during the lifetime of the previous director; and the lives of these five may well form the second section. The line was interrupted after the resignation of the sixth Astronomer Royal, and the third section will be devoted to the seventh director, Airy, under whom the Observatory entered upon its modern period of expansion.
'God suffers not man to be idle, although he swim in the midst of delights; for when He had placed His own image (Adam) in a paradise so replenished (of His goodness) with varieties of all things, conducing as well to his pleasure as sustenance, that the earth produced of itself things convenient for both,—He yet (to keep him out of idleness) commands him to till, prune, and dress his pleasant, verdant habitation; and to add (if it might be) some lustre, grace, or conveniency to that place, which, as well as he, derived its original from his Creator.'
In these words John Flamsteed begins the first of several autobiographies which he has handed down to us; this particular one being written before he attained his majority, 'to keep myself from idleness and to recreate myself.'
'I was born,' he goes on, 'at Denby, in Derbyshire, in the year 1646, on the 19th day of August, at 7 hours 16 minutes after noon. My father, named Stephen, was the third son of Mr. William Flamsteed, of Little Hallam; my mother, Mary, was the daughter of Mr. John Spateman, of Derby, ironmonger. From these two I derived my beginning, whose parents were of known integrity, honesty, and fortune, as they [were] of equal extraction and ingenuity; betwixt whom I [was] tenderly educated (by reason of my natural weakness, which required more than ordinary care) till I was aged three years and a fortnight; when my mother departed, leaving my father a daughter, then not a month old, with me, then weak, to his fatherly care and provision.'
The weakly, motherless boy became at an early age a voracious reader. At first, he says—
'I began to affect the volubility and ranting stories of romances; and at twelve years of age I first left off the wild ones, and betook myself to read the better sort of them, which, though they were not probable, yet carried no seeming impossibility in the fiction. Afterwards, as my reason increased, I gathered other real histories; and by the time I was fifteen years old I had read, of the ancients, Plutarch's Lives, Appian's and Tacitus's Roman Histories, Holingshed's History of the Kings of England, Davies's Life of Queen Elizabeth, Saunderson's of King Charles the First, Heyling's Geography, and many others of the moderns; besides a company of romances and other stories, of which I scarce remember a tenth at present.'
Flamsteed received his education at the free school at Derby, where he continued until the Whitsuntide of 1662, when he was nearly sixteen years of age. Two years earlier than this, however, a great misfortune fell upon him.