Among other objects of speculation he had considered the law of attraction, which he imagined must be as the inverse square of tho distance. Having applied iu vain to Hook and Wren for assistance in the mathematical part of the problem (himself being more of a mathe matician than either), he heard of Newton, and paid him a visit at Cambridge. Finding all he wanted among the papers of his new friend, he never rested until he had persuaded Newton to publish the Fria cipia,' of which he superintended the printing, and supplied the well known copy of Latin verses which stand at the beginning. In 1691 he was a candidate for the Saviliau professorship, which he lost, according to Whitton, on account of his avowed unbelief of the Bible. This rests on the authority of Whiston, and of an anecdote to be found in Sir David Brewster's Life of Newton ; and yet it is certain that he afterwards was appointed to the same professorship, and as he then obtsinod the degree of Dootor of Laws, which required no subscrip tion to articles, it may bo presumed his opinions, if known, were not oonsidered to be a disqualiticatiou. Flamateed, if we remember rightly, speaks of his opinions ou this matter as things of common notoriety. In 1696 he was appointed comptroller of the mint at Chester, where he resided two years.
In 1698 King William, who had heard of his magnetic theory, gave him the commission of captain in the navy, with the command of a small vessel, and instructions to observe the variation of the magnet, I and the longitude and latitude in the American settlements, and to attempt the discovery of land south of the Western Ocean. He set out in November, but was compelled to return by the insubordination of his first lieutenant. Having tried this officer by a court-martial, he set out again in September, with the same ship and another, • observed in many parts of the Atlantic as far as the ice would per mit, touched at the Canaries, Madeira, Cape de Verd Islands, St. Helena, Brazil, Barbadoes, and returned September 1700, not having lost a man by sickness during the whole of the voyage. He published in 1701 a chart of the variation of the magnet in all seas of the known world, and immediately afterwards sailed to survey the coasts of the Channel, of which be also published a chart. He was then twice suc cessively ordered to the coast of the Adriatic, to assist in the forma tion and repairs of harbours in the emperor's dominions, and returned to England in November 1703, just in time to succeed Dr. Wallis, who had died a few weeks before, in the Savilian chair of geometry at Oxford.
If Halley was active and energetic, he was no less universal The captain-professor found an unfinished translation by Dr. Bernard of a tract of Apolloolus, and, though he did not understand Arabic, under took to complete the work. [Arettostrus, BEnowus.] A manuscript
Life of Halley in the Bodleian Library (read before the Royal Astro nomical Society ; see their Monthly Notice,' December 1834,) says, " This he did with much success, through his being so great a master of the subject, that I remember the learned Dr. Sykes (our Hebrew at Cambridge, and the greatest naturalist of his time when I was at that university), told me that Mr. Halley, talking with him upon the subject, showed him two or three passages which wanted emendation, telling him what the anther said, and what ho should have said, and which Dr. Sykes found he might with great ease be made to say, by small corrections he was by this means enabled to make in the text. Thus, I remember Dr. Sykes expressed himself, Mr. Halley made einendations to the text of an author he could not so much as read tho language of." It is not necessary (after the article last cited) to say more of the splendid edition of the whole of Apollonius, published in 1710.
The 'Miscellanea Curiosa,' a collection of pieces, mostly from the 'Philosophical Transactions,' many of them by himself, was superin tended by him, and published in 1708.
Halley resided at Oxford for some years after his appointment to the Savilian chair, nor do we know when he again became a per manent resident in London : it was however not later than 1713, for in that year he became secretary to the Royal Society. He had been assistantsecretary before, as far back as 1685, and the Transactions from 1686 to 1692 were superintended by him. From the manner in which his name is mixed up with the affair of Flamsteed, he must have resided in town for some years previous to 1713. [FterasysEn.) In the article cited we have called Flamateed's work the Principia of practical astronomy ; and it were to be wished the connection of Halley with the printing of this one had been as creditable as that which links his name with the 'Principle' of Newton. It is difficult to say to what extent Halley was involved in originating any of the unworthy proceedings to which we allude; and we must protest against his being made a scapegoat for Newton, in which position even Flamsteed seemed inclined to place him, as well as several more recent writers on the controversy. Neither the position nor the character of Halley renders it likely that he would prefer making a tool of Newton to any direct mode of aggression. The committee appointed by Prince George of Denmark must bear the blame of all the formal proceedings ; and in that committee the name of Halley is not found, though it is on the list of those who pub lished the Commercium Epistolicum, a position which we cannot defend.