1722. Pound died in 1724, and in the next year Bradley | Mechanical Philosophy, where we should certainly not
began the observations which led to his great discovery.

The circumstances connected with the discovery of
ABERRATION are already described. The scene of the
first observations was at the house of Mr. Molyneux at
Kew, which afterwards became the palace of that name,
lately pulled down, a memorial inscription of the discovery
having been placed there by William IV. The associated
observations of Bradley and Molyneux detected the mo-
tion of y Draconis, and other stars, and established approxi-
mately the law of the motion of the first. That the motion
in declination depended in some way or other on the lati-
tude of the star was evident, and in this state the matter
stood, when Bradley in 1727 erected a zenith sector for him-
self at Wanstead. The original entry of the first night's ob-
servation at Kew, which confirmed the fact of an unex-
plained motion in y Draconis (Dec. 21, 1725), is preserved in
Bradley's own hand-writing. The following, written on a
torn bit of paper, is the earliest of the observed phenomena
which led to the greatest discovery of a man who has, more
than any other, contributed to render a single observation
of a star correct enough for the purposes of astronomy :-
Dec 21st Tuesday 5h 40' sider. time
Adjusted ye mark to ye Plumb Line
& then ye Index stood at 8
5 48′ 22′′ ye star entred

graduat

I turned y fine screw till I saw
y light of y' star perfectly

bissected, and after yR obser
vation I found y' index
at 11. so that by this
observation y
mark is about 3"
too much south.
but adjusting

y mark and plumbline
I found y' Index at 84

Bradley began his observations at Wanstead with a better
instrument than that at Kew. and capable of taking in a
larger range of the heavens. He soon confirmed the general
fact which he had observed, and it only remained to assign
the cause.
There is traditional evidence to the following
anecdote, first given by Dr. Thomson in his History of the
Royal Society, and adopted by Professor Rigaud :- When
he despaired of being able to account for the phenomena
which he had observed, a satisfactory explanation of it
occurred to him all at once when he was not in search of it.
He accompanied a pleasure party in a sail upon the river
Thames. The boat in which they were was provided with
a mast which had a vane upon the top of it. It blew a
moderate wind, and the party sailed up and down the river
for a considerable time. Dr. Bradley remarked, that every
time the boat put about, the vane at the top of the boat's
mast shifted a little, as if there had been a slight change in
the direction of the wind. He observed this three or four
times without speaking; at last he mentioned it to the
sailors, and expressed his surprise that the wind should shift
so regularly every time they put about. The sailors told
him that the wind had not shifted, but that the apparent
change was owing to the change in the direction of the boat,
and assured him that the same thing invariably happened
in all cases. By tracing this phenomenon to its cause,
namely, the combined motion of the boat and the wind, he
was enabled to give the solution of the star's motion,
namely, a small change of place arising from the spectator
giving to the ray of light the effects of his own motion, as
explained in the article ABERRATION.

Since we wrote the above, we have found what leaves us
at liberty to say that Dr. Robison is the authority for the
preceding account, who was old enough to have possibly
heard it from one of Bradley's contemporaries. He (Dr.
Robison) has given the anecdote himself in a part of his

have gone to look for it, nor, we imagine, would Professor Rigaud: namely, in the chapter on Seamanship, vol. iv. p. 629. His story is as follows:-The celebrated astronomer Dr. Bradley, taking the amusement of sailing in a pinnace on the river Thames, observed this, "the phenomenon above described," and was surprised at it, imagining that the change of wind was owing to the approaching to or retiring from the shore. The boatmen told him that it always happened at sea, and explained it to him in the best manner they were able. The explanation struck him, and set him a musing on an astronomical phenomenon which he had been puzzled by for some years. This account differs in some material points from that of Dr. Thomson, and is not given by Dr. Robison in terms which imply that he considered himself as the authority. Perhaps further evidence may be obtainable.

Upon this discovery, several observations must be made, relative to its importance in astronomy. It is the first positively direct and unanswerable proof of the earth's motion. In the next place, the explanation given was not purely an hypothetical one, or one which would allow of any velocity being attributed to light which would best answer to observed phenomena, but required that the velocity already measured by Römer's observations of the retardation of the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites should be the sufficient reason for the annual oscillations of the fixed stars. A very simple geometrical analysis of the problem shows that when the angle of aberration is greatest, its sine must be the quotient of the earth's velocity divided by the velocity of light. Taking the first at 18 miles per second, depending upon the correctness of the measurement of the earth's orbit and of the length of the year, and the second at 200.000 miles per second, which depends upon a third and distinct phenomenon, namely, the observations of the time of eclipses of Jupiter's satellites at different periods of the year, we find à priori, that the sine of the greatest angle of aberration, if aberration there be, must be .00009, which is the sine of 19 seconds nearly, and has been made in round numbers. The greatest aberration from the mean place observed by Bradley was 20 seconds and two-tenths, in which the most correct modern observations, in masses of thousands at a time, have not shown an error of more than three-tenths of a second. This is one of the reasons why we have said that, in the union of theoretical sagacity with practical excellence, Bradley stands unrivalled. Newton, Laplace, &c. were not observers. Flamsteed, Cassini, &c. were not great theorists. Halley, who of all the men of Bradley's time, united the largest knowledge of both, was so far from being the equal of Bradley in minuteness of observation, that he constantly declared his suspicion of the impossibility of detecting a part of a second. Kepler was skilful in the detection of the laws which phenomena follow, but not in that of physical causes. In our opinion, Hipparchus is (difference of circumstances considered) the prototype of Bradley. The time of the discovery of the cause of aberration was probably about September, 1728 (Correct ASTRONOMY, vol. ii. p. 535, where it might be inferred that both the phenomenon and the cause were discovered in the same year), and was communicated immediately to the Royal Society (Phil. Trans. No. 406, vol. xxxv, p. 637). In 1728 Bradley began lectures at Oxford, and in 1732 removed his residence to that University. We pass over the various labours by which he sustained the character of the 'best astronomer in Europe,' given to him by Newton, and proceed to the year 1742, when he was appointed astronomer royal. was almost the last_act of Sir Robert Walpole's administration, who, as Professor Rigaud has well observed,

This

appears to have determined that one of the first points he would secure before his retirement was the nomination in question: he declared his intention of resigning in the House of Commons on the 2nd of February, and Bradley's appointment was dated the 3rd. From this time to 1747 he was engaged (among other things) in the career of observation which led to his second great discovery of nutation, communicated in that year (Phil. Trans. No. 485, vol. xlv. p. 1). The phenomenon in its most simple state may be thus represented: the earth's axis, instead of describing a cone, describes a fluted cone; or, the pole of the equator, instead of moving uniformly round the pole of the ecliptic in a small circle, describes a wavy or undulating curve with a milled edge, if we may so speak, with about 1400 undulations in a complete revolution. The merit of

Bradley consists, firstly, in his determination of so small a private property, and that the daughter of the latter re-
quantity, since the greatest effect of nutation is only halfceived compensation for relinquishing her right to her
that of aberration, and distributed through 19 years instead father's papers; 2. That a salaried office of only 1007. a
of one; secondly, in his discovery of the circumstance on year, with the duty of improving as much as possible the
which it depends, namely, the position of the moon's orbit planetary tables, and the method of finding the longitude,
with respect to the equator. This orbit shifts the position by no means implied an obligation to consider the actual ob-
of its nodes gradually, making them complete a revolution servations made as the property of the government: and
in about 18 years.
This was also found to be the period 3. That the Royal Society having first made and abandoned
in which the pole of the equator describes one of the waves a claim, the government instituted its suit in 1767, and
above mentioned, and subsequent investigation has confirmed abandoned it in 1776, before the observations were presented,
the dependence of the greater part of the nutation on the not to Lord North personally, but in trust for the University
motion of the moon's node, by showing the former to be a of which he was chancellor. Dr. Maskelyne wrote under
consequence of the non-sphericity of the earth, and of the feelings of pique at being refused the sheets of the ob-
moon's attraction on the protuberant parts. [NUTATION.] servations as fast as they were printed; this, though it
There is a third investigation of Bradley which stands would have been, under ordinary circumstances, a churlish
out from the rest, and displays considerable mathematical proceeding, might perhaps have been advisable in regard to
sagacity: we refer to his empirical formula for the law of the officer of a government that had pretended a claim to the
refraction. He was assisted in the necessary computations property of the work, which, though dormant at the time,
by Maskelyne, who first appeared before the world as the the University could not know to have been formally aban-
pupil of Bradley. In this very delicate research, the latter doned. And it has been suggested to us, that there is no
had again gone beyond his contemporaries in the evalu- method of abandoning a suit in the Exchequer, as a prac-
ation of minute quantities. His table is even yet very tical relinquishment of proceedings is no bar in that court to
good for the first forty-five degrees of zenith distance; their revival at any future time. The observations in ques-
and his determination of the latitude of Greenwich (an in- tion were published at Oxford in two volumes; the first in
vestigation depending for its accuracy upon that of the 1798, under the superintendence of Dr. Hornsby; the second
tables of refraction) does not differ more than half a second in 1805, under that of Dr. Abraham Robertson. They go
from that deduced by Mr. Pond from 720 observations with from 1750 to 1762, and are about 60,000 in number.
both the mural circles.

In 1751 the alteration of the style took place, and Bradley appears to have had some share in drawing up the necessary tables, as well as in aiding Lord Macclesfield, his early friend, and the seconder of the measure in the House of Lords, and Mr. Pelham, then minister, with his advice on the subject. But this procured him some unpopularity, for the common people of all ranks imagined that the alteration was equivalent to robbing them of eleven days of their natural lives, and called Bradley's subsequent illness and decline a judgment of heaven. This was, as far as we know, the last expiring manifestation of a belief in the wickedness of altering the time of religious anniversaries which had disturbed the world, more or less, and at different periods, for 1400 years. In the same year Bradley obtained a pension of 2507. from the crown. From that time he continued his observations, of which we shall presently speak, till the 1st of Sept. 1761, in the observations of which date his handwriting occurs for the last time in the Greenwich registers. He then retired among his wife's relations at Chalford in Gloucestershire, where he died July 13, 1762, and was buried at Minchinhampton. His health had been failing for some years, though he was originally of a strong constitution, and always of temperate habits. His wife died before him in 1757, and he left one daughter, but his line is now extinct.

Thus far we have obtained our materials for facts from the life by professor Rigaud, above cited. This account does not mention the subsequent history of the manuscript observations made at the observatory of Greenwich, nor does the life in Kippis's Biographia Britannica. The following is Dr. Maskelyne's account (Answer to Mudge's Narrative, &c. Lond. 1792):- Dr. Bradley's valuable observations were made in the course of twenty years from 1742 to 1762, and consist of thirteen volumes in folio. They were removed from the Royal Observatory, before I was appointed to the care of it, by the doctor's executors, who thought proper to consider them as private property; and during a suit instituted on the part of the crown, in the Exchequer, to recover them, they were presented in 1776 to Lord North, now Earl of Guilford, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and by him presented to the University, on condition of their printing and publishing them. The University put them immediately for that purpose into the hands of Dr. Hornsby, Savilian professor, &c., whose bad state of health has been alleged as the cause of the delay of the publication.' The account of Dr. Hornsby, in the preface of the publication in question, differs from the preceding in an important particular. The above would allow us to infer that the University of Oxford accepted a donation the right to make which was under litigation, with a strong prima facie case against it. Now Dr. Hornsby mentions. 1. What is very well known, that both the predecessors of Bradley, Flamsteed and Halley, were allowed to consider their own observations as their own property; that the former printed, and his executors published, his observations as

But these observations might have remained a useless mass, except for occasional reference, to this day, had it not been for the energy of a distinguished German astronomer, Frederick William Bessel, who at Lilienthal and Königsberg successively, and from 1807 to 1818, added to other laborious occupations the enormous task of reducing and drawing conclusions from all Bradley's observations, published in the latter place and year under the title of Fundamenta Astronomia pro anno 1755, deducta ex observationibus viri incomparabilis James Bradley. This work has always been considered one of the most valuable contributions to our astronomy. It exhibits the result of all Bradley's observations of stars, reduced on a uniform system, and is always referred to by succeeding astronomers as the representative of Bradley's observations.' (Professor Airy, Rep. Brit. Ass. vol. i. p. 137.) It

may be said that Bradley changed the face of astronomy. The discoveries of aberration and nutation, and the improvement of the tables of refraction, the attention to minute observation, and the tact with which every instrument was applied to the purposes for which it was best adapted, were so many great steps both in the art and science. Before his time every instrumental improvement was a new cause of confusion, by pointing out irregularities which seemed to baffle all attempts both at finding laws and causes. Nevertheless, the name of Bradley hardly appears in popular works, nor will do so until the state of astronomy is better understood. Let any man set up for the founder of a sect, and begin by asserting that he has found out the cause of attraction, or the structure of the moon; let him exalt himself in the daily papers, and he must be unfortunate indeed if in three years he is not more widely known in this country than its own Bradley, one of the first astronomers of any.

BRADSHAW, JOHN, president of the court which tried Charles I. Bradshaw was of a good family in Cheshire. His mother was a daughter and coheiress of Ralf Winnington of Offerton. Noble and Chalmers state that the place of his education is not recorded. But his will establishes this, for he makes legacies to certain schools at which he says he had received his education. He was a student of law in Gray's Inn. He had considerable chamber practice, especially among the partisans of the parliament, and he is admitted by his enemies to have been not without ability and legal knowledge. (Clarendon )

In October, 1644, he was employed by the parliament, in conjunction with Prynne and Nudigate, to prosecute Lords Macquire and Macmahon, the Irish rebels. In October, 1646, by a vote of the House of Commons, in which the peers were desired to acquiesce, he was appointed one of the three commissioners of the great seal for six months; and in February following, by a vote of both houses, chief justice of Chester. In June, 1647, he was named by the parliament one of the counsel to prosecute the royalist Judge Jenkins. October 12, 1648, by order of the parlia ment, he received the degree of serjeant.

VOL. V.-2 T

State, which sat that day; and when Colonel Sydenham, one of the members of the council, endeavoured to justify the army in what they had done, and concluded his speech by saying, according to the cant of the day, that they were necessitated to make use of this last remedy by particular call of the Divine Providence; weak and extenuated as he was,' says Ludlow, 'yet animated by his ardent zeal, and constant affection to the common cause, he stood up, and interrupting him, declared his abhorrence of that detestable action; and telling the council, that being now going to his God, he had not patience to sit there to hear his great name so withdrew from public employment. He survived this but a few days, dying November 22nd, 1659, of a quartan ague, which had lasted a year. A stout man,' says Whitelock, and learned in his profession: no friend to monarchy.' He declared, a little before his death, that if the king were to be tried and condemned again, he would be the first man that should do it. He was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, whence his body was dragged at the restoration, to be exposed upon a gibbet, with those of Cromwell and Ireton.

On January the 1st, 1648-9, it was adjudged by the Commons that by the fundamental laws of the land, it is treason in the king of England for the time being to levy war against the parliament and kingdom. On the 4th an ordinance was passed for erecting a high court of justice for trial of the king. The commissioners for the trial of the king elected Serjeant Bradshaw their president. Lord Clarendon says that at first he seemed much surprised and very resolute to refuse it. The offer and the acceptance of it are strong evidence of Bradshaw's courage and the staunchness of his republicanism. The court ordered, that John Bradshaw, Serjeant-at-openly blasphemed.' He then abruptly left the council, and Law, who is appointed president of this court, should be called by the name, and have the title of Lord President, and that as well within as without the said court, during the commission and sitting of the said court. The deanery house in Westminster was given him as a residence for himself and his posterity; and the sum of 5000l. allowed him to procure an equipage suitable to the dignity of his office. The parliament further settled 4000l. a-year upon him and his heirs, in landed property. He was also made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. He had previously been appointed Chief Justice of Wales and of Chester, besides being Lord President of the Council of State. The accumulation of so many offices in one man certainly looks something like pluralism in the Commonwealth: and unless great allowance be made on account of the dignity of the work done, the remuneration must appear somewhat dis-gested in the annals of human kind;-the delegates of a proportioned to the quantity of it.

The leading feature in Bradshaw's life-that which makes his name the property of history-was his acting as presiding judge in the trial of the king; a transaction, in the words of Hume, the pomp and dignity, the ceremony of which corresponded to the greatest conception that is sug

great people sitting in judgment upon their supreme* When Cromwell seized the government, Bradshaw was magistrate, and trying him for his misgovernment and one of those who offered all the opposition in their power, breach of trust.' How did he conduct himself on that and never went over to him. Bradshaw's conduct, in courage occasion? With the mixture of dignity, firmness, moderaand firmness, almost equalled Ludlow's. His bold answer tion, and humanity, which befitted his high office? or, as to Cromwell, when he came to dissolve the council, is well asserted by Clarendon, with all the pride, impudence, and known. When Cromwell insisted upon every one's taking superciliousness imaginable?' Did he, in the words of out a commission from himself, if they chose to retain their Noble, behave to fallen majesty with a rudeness that places under his government, Bradshaw absolutely refused, those who preside in our criminal courts never use to the alleging that he had received his commission as Chief lowest culprit ? What was the fact? Charles having Justice of Chester, to continue quamdiu se bene gesserit, repeatedly refused to acknowledge the authority of the and he should retain it without any other, unless he could court, Bradshaw addressed him thus: Sir, this is the be proved to have justly forfeited it by want of integrity; third time that you have publicly disowned the court, and and if there were any doubts upon it, he should submit it to put an affront upon it; but truly, Sir, men's intentions ought trial by twelve Englishmen. He soon after set out on the to be known by their actions; you have written your meancircuit, without waiting further orders; nor did Oliver thinking in bloody characters throughout the kingdom. Ludlow it prudent to prevent or recal him, as he had said nothing but force should make him desist from his duty.

It was not to be expected that such conduct would find much favour in the eyes of Cromwell. He attempted to oppose his election for Cheshire; and though Bradshaw was returned by the sheriff, as others in the Cromwellian interest returned another, neither sat, it having been so decided in the case of double returns. Bradshaw's power and popularity must have been very considerable; for, notwithstanding his having been engaged in several designs against the power of Cromwell, one of which was connected with the Fifth Monarchy-men, who were to destroy and pull down Babylon, and bind kings in chains and nobles in fetters of iron, his highness did not dare to seize him, but continued to watch and defeat his designs with his characteristic policy. Bradshaw however was deprived of his office of Chief Justice of Chester. The two former friends watched each other with the vigilance of two crouching tigers, each waiting for the exact moment to make the decisive spring that was to destroy the other. And we may give some credit to the observation of certain of the royalist writers, that Bradshaw would have had no objection to perform for Oliver, the unhereditary tyrant, the same office he had performed for Charles, the hereditary one; and that he would not have been sorry to have had an opportunity to convince the world that he was no respecter of persons.

On the death of Oliver, and the abdication of his son Richard, Bradshaw obtained a seat in the Council of State, was elected Lord President, and appointed a Commissioner of the Great Seal; but his health, which had been some time declining, became so precarious that he was unable to perform the duties of that office.

The last act of Bradshaw's life was consistent with the free and brave spirit which he had always shown. The army had again put a force upon the House of Commons, by seizing the Speaker, Lenthall, on his way thither, and thereby suspending all further proceedings of the existing government. The almost expiring but unsubdued spirit of Bradshaw felt the insult. He repaired to the Council of

says, that to Charles's repeated assertions that he was responsible only to God, Bradshaw answered, that seeing God had, by his providence, overruled that plea, the court was determined to do so likewise.' Bradshaw, on giving sentence, resorted to precedent. He instanced the case of many kings who had been deposed and imprisoned by their subjects, particularly in Charles's native country, where, out of a hundred and nine, the greater part had either been dethroned, or proceeded against for mis-government; and even the prisoner's own grandmother removed, and his father, while an infant, crowned in her stead. (Rushworth, vii., 1396.; Whitelock, p. 376; Ludlow, Hutchinson, Clarendon, &c.)

His will, which is dated March 22, 1653, contains several remarkable facts. He directs his brother Henry to expend 700%. in purchasing an annuity for maintaining a free school at Marple, 5007. for increasing the wages of the master of Bunbury school, and 500l. to increase the wages of the master and usher of Middleton school. There are two codicils to the will; and by one dated September 10, 1655, he gives 107. to John Milton. The will was proved December 16, 1659. (Ormerod's Cheshire, vol. iii. p. 409; and the character of him by Milton, in the Defensio Secunda pro Populo Anglicano.)

BRADY, NICOLAS, a divine whose name is known chiefly in connexion with that of Nathan Tate, his versifying collaborator in producing the new version of the Psalms of David, which has since become generally used in the Church of England, in the place of the obsolete version made in the reign of Edward VI. by Sternhold and Hopkins. Brady was the son of an officer in the royalist army during the civil war in 1641, and was born October 28, 1659, at Bandon, a town of Ireland, in the county of Cork. At the age of twelve he was sent to Westminster school, whence he proceeded to the college • Supreme magistrate is a contradiction in terms; supreme being uppli cable only to the sovereign, and magistrate a name for a subject. Hume, though he professed to write on government, never seems to have understood meaning of sovereignty, though Hobbes had made it sufficiently clear,

the

Lives of the Regicides, i, 52,

not appear different in matter. Both contain the Oratio of the sphere, and the ephemerides of Stadius. In 1562 Funebris, &c. of John Jessenius. See also Teissier, Eloges his uncle, who intended him for the law, sent him to Leipdes Hommes savans,' iv. 383; Blount Censura,' &c.; Epis- zig with a tutor. But he would attend no more to that science tolæ ad Johannem Keplerum,' &c., 1718; Riccioli, Chroni- than just enough to save appearances; he disliked the con in Almagesto Novo,' v. i. p. 46. For modern accounts study, and made a punning epigram on it as follows :-of his astronomy see Delambre Ast. Mod.;' and in English 'Jus patinæ et legum sunt nomine jura sub uno, the chapter on Tycho Brahé and Kepler in Narrien's AcGrandia condunt et grandia jura vorant.' count of the Progress of Astronomy, Baldwin, 1833. The life in the Biog. Univ.' is by Malte-Brun. The writings of Tycho Brahé are as follows. The capitals serve to separate different works.