HOOKE, ROBERT, was born July 18, 1635, at Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, of which parish his father was theu minister. After leaving Westminster School, where he had been placed under the care of Dr. Busby, he entered Christchurch, Oxford, in the year 1653; and shortly afterwards, having been introduced to tho Philosophical Society of Oxford, we learn that he was engaged to assist Dr. Wallis in his chemical experiments, and that he subsequently served Mr. Robert Boyle in a ,slmilar capacity. lu 1662 he was appointed curator of experiments to the Royal Society ; and when that body was incorporated by charter the following year, Mr. Ilooke was one of those bellows who were first nominated by the counciL (Thom son's Hist of the Royal Society,' appendix iv.) In 1604 he succeeded Dr. Decree as professor of geometry in Oresham College; and two years after, having produced a plan for rebuilding the city of London, which had been recently destroyed by fire, ho received the appointment of city surveyor, and from the emoluments of that office lie subsequently acquired considerable wealth. (Ward's ' Lives of the Gresham Professors,' Loudon, 1740, fol.) In 1668, lievelius having sent a copy of his 'Cometographin' to Mr. Hooke, the latter, In return, sent Ilevellus a description of hie now dioptrie telescope, which led to a dispute wherein several of the members of Um Royal Society afterwards became involved. PlevetrUs.) In 1677 he suo ceeded Oldenburg as secretary to the Society. In ]091 he was created Doctor of Physic, by a warrant from Archbishop Tilloteon. lie died at Gresham College in 1702, in his sixty-eighth year, exhaustel by long-continued and meritorious exertions in the cause of science. His funeral was attended by all the members of the Royal Society, and his remains were interred in the church of St. Helen, Bishopgato Street. In his person Hooke was short of stature, thin, and crooked.
He seldom retired to bed till two or throe o'clock in the morning, and frequently pursued his studies during the whole night. Ilia inventive faculty was surprisingly great, but he was chiefly charac terised by his mechanical turn sod his great sagacity in discovering the general laws of phenomena, in proof of which it will be sufficieut to give the following extract from a paper commuuicated by Dr. Hooke in 1674 (' Phil. Trans.,' No. 101, p. 12), entitled 'An Attempt to prove the Motion of the Earth from Observation,' wherein he says "ha will explain a system of the world differing from any yet known, but answering in all things to the common rules of mechanical motions, which system depends upon three suppositions. ]. That all celestial bodies whatsoever have an attraction or gravitating power towards their own centres, whereby they attract nut only their own parts and keep them from flying from them (as we may observe the earth to do), but also all other celestial bodies that are within the sphere of their activity. 2. That all bodies what soever that are put into a direct and simple motion will co con tissue to move forward in a straight line till they are by seine more effectual power deflected and bent into a motion that describes some curved line. 3. That these attractive powers are so much the more powerful in operating, by how much nearer the body wrought upon is to their own centres." " This," observes Mr. Barlow (' Ency. Metro.,' art. 'Astronomy '), "was a very precise enunciation of a proper philosophical theory." The works left by Dr. Hooke are too nume rous to mention here; but the reader will find a complete list of those published during his litetime, and also of his posthumous• works, in 1Vard's Lives of the Gresham Professors.'