The establishment of the Royal Society in 1660, afforded to Dr Hooke numerous opportunities of extending his re putation. He published in 1660, a small tract on the ascent of water in small tubes by capillary attraction, in which he spewed that the height of the water was in a cer tain proportion to their bores. A debate arose on this subject in the Royal Society in April 1661 ; but Hooke's replies were considered so satisfactory, and raised him so high in the estimation of the Society, that in 1662 he was appointed curator of experiments to that distinguished body. He was also one of the 98 persons who were declared members of the Royal Society, at a meeting of the council held May 20th, 1663, by virtue of the power given them by the charter for two months. He was admitted to the so ciety on the 3d of June, and was peculiarly exempted from all payments. In the same year he took his degree of Master of Arts, and the Repository of the Royal Society in the White Gallery of Gresham College was committed to his care. About this time he drew up a list of enquiries for the use of those who might have occasion to visit Greenland or Iceland. Those which respect Iceland are numerous and interesting; and one of them is particularly deserving of notke : " Whether spirits appear ; in what shape ; what they say and do ; any thing of that kind very remarkable, and of good credit ?" In May 1664, he deli vered the astronomical lecture at Gresham College for Dr Pope, who was absent in Italy ; and in the same year, Sir John Cutler gave him a salary of 50/. per annum, for read ing a course of mechanical lectures, under the direction of the Royal Society. These lectures were afterwards pub lished in 4to, in 1679, under the title of "Lectiones Cutle fiance, or a collection of lectures, physical, mechanical, geographical, and astronomical, made before the Royal So ciety on several occasions, at Gresham College ; to which are added divers miscellaneous discourses." On the 1 ] January 1664, the Royal Society settled upon him a salary of 301. per annum for life, for his labours as curator of ex periments ; and on the 20th of March of the same year, he was appointed to succeed Dr Dacres as professor of geo metry in Gresham College. In the year 1665, Hooke pub lished his " Micrographia, or some physiological descrip tions of minute bodies, made by magnifying glasses, with observations and enquiries thereupon." All the figures in this work were drawn with his own hand, and many of them are a kind of standard representations, which have been copied by succeeding authors. The best are those of the common mite, flea, louse, gnat, and ant. A new edi tion of it with abbreviated descriptions appeared in 1745, in which the baroscope, the hygroscope, and the engine for grinding optic glasses, were wholly omitted. During the recess of the Royal Society, on account of the plague in 1665, he accompanied Mr. Wilkins and other ingenious au thors into Surry, where they continued their philosophical labours. In 1665, at one of the first meetings of the Royal Society, Dr Hooke produced a very small quadrant for ob serving the minutes and seconds, by means of an arm mov ed with a screw along the limb of the quadrant. His ex planation of the inflection of a direct into a curvilineal mo tion, was read to the Society on the 23d May 1666.
On the 19th of September 1666, he laid before the Roy al Society a model for rebuilding the city of London, which was destroyed by the great fire ; but though his plan was not executed, he was appointed one of the surveyors under the act of parliament ; a situation in which he realized a con siderable sum of money, which was found after his death in a large iron chest, that appeared to have been shut up for 30 years. The irritable temper of our author now involv ed him in several quarrels, in all of which he conducted himself with impropriety. In our life of Hevelius, we have
already given an account of his controversy with that astro nomer respecting the comparative merits of plain and tele scopic sights. In 1671, he attacked Newton's theory of light and colours ; and in 1675 he had a warm dispute with Mr Oldenburg, the secretary to the Royal Society, in con sequence of his pamphlet, entitled "A Description of He lioscopes, and some other Instruments, made by Robert Hooke," in which he complains that Oldenburg had not done him justice respecting his invention of pendulum watches. The dispute terminated by a declaration of the Royal Society, who took the part of their secretary. • In 1676, he published his " Description of Helioscopes, and some other Instruments," a work which contains many curious inventions, some of which are described in ana grams. Upon the death of Oldenburg in 1677, Hooke was appointed to the vacant office of secretary ; and while he held that situation, he published between 1679 and 1681 the seven numbers of the Philosophical Collections, which have always been regarded as a part of the Philosophical Transactions.
About this time the natural peevishness of his temper began to become quite intolerable : He claimed as his own the inventions and discoveries of every other person ; and he became so reserved in communicating his own labours to the public, that though he read his Cutlerian lectures, and exhibited new inventions to the Royal Society, yet he never left any account of them to be entered in the regis ters. When the Principia appeared in 1686, he laid claim to the discovery of the doctrine of gravitation, a claim which was warmly resented by Sir Isaac Newton. Hooke, no doubt, had the merit of stating, that gravitation was the power which kept the planets in their orbits, and he even made some experiments to determine the law by which it was regulated ; but what a vast interval is there between this conjecture, happy as it is, and the splendid discoveries of Newton ! In the year 1687 he suffered a severe loss by the death of his brother's daughter, Mrs Grace Hooke, who had lived several years with hint ; and the distress of his mind was still farther increased by a Chancery suit with Sir John Cutler respecting his salary. In 1691, Archbishop Tillot son employed him in conniving the plan or the hospital near Hoxton, founded by Robert Ash ; and out of gratitude for his services, that distinguished prelate obtained for him the degree of M. D. When the Chancery suit with Sir John Cutler was determined in his favour in 1696, he was so overjoyed, that he left an account of his feelings in his diary, expressed in the following manner. " DomstuLoissA, that is, Deo, optima, maxima, sit 'honor, laus, gloria in s creak s eculorum, Amen." "1 was born on this day of July, 1635, and God bath given me a new birth ; may I never forget his mercies to me ! while he gives me breath may I praise him !" In order to induce hint to complete some of his inventions, the Royal Society requested him in 1696, to re peat most of his experiments at their expence, but the in firm state of his health prevented hint from complying with their request. During the two or three last years of his Wit lie is said to have sat night and day at a table, so much engrossed with his inventions and studies, that he never undressed himself or went to bed. Emaciated with the gradual approach of old age, he died in Gresham Col lege on the 3d March 1702, in the 87th year of his age, and was buried in St Helen's church, Bishopsg-ate street, his funeral being attended by all the members of the Royal So ciety who were then in London.