Throughout his life Halley had been singularly free from illness of every kind, but in 1737 he had a stroke of paralysis. Notwithstanding this, however, he worked diligently at his telescope till 1739, after which his health began rapidly to give way. He died on January 14th, 1742, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, retaining his mental faculties to the end. He was buried in the cemetery of the church of Lee in Kent, in the same grave as his wife, who had died five years previously. We are informed by Admiral Smyth that Pond, a later Astronomer Royal, was afterwards laid in the same tomb. Halley's disposition seems to have been generous and candid, and wholly free from anything like jealousy or rancour. In person he was rather above the middle height, and slight in build; his complexion was fair, and he is said to have always spoken, as well as acted, with uncommon sprightliness. In the eloge pronounced upon him at the Paris Academie Des Sciences, of which Halley had been made a member in 1719 it was said, "he possessed all the qualifications which were necessary to please princes who were desirous of instruction, with a great extent of knowledge and a constant presence of mind; his answers were ready, and at the same time pertinent, judicious, polite and sincere." [PLATE: GREENWICH OBSERVATORY IN HALLEY'S TIME.] Thus we find that Peter the Great was one of his most ardent admirers. He consulted the astronomer on matters connected with shipbuilding, and invited him to his own table. But Halley possessed nobler qualifications than the capacity of pleasing Princes. He was able to excite and to retain the love and admiration of his equals. This was due to the warmth of his attachments, the unselfishness of his devotion to his friends, and to a vein of gaiety and good-humour which pervaded all his conversation. BRADLEY. James Bradley was descended from an ancient family in the county of Durham. He was born in 1692 or 1693, at Sherbourne, in Gloucestershire, and was educated in the Grammar School at Northleach. From thence he proceeded in due course to Oxford, where he was admitted a commoner at Balliol College, on March 15th, 1711. Much of his time, while an undergraduate, was passed in Essex with his maternal uncle, the Rev. James Pound, who was a well-known man of science and a diligent observer of the stars. It was doubtless by intercourse with his uncle that young Bradley became so expert in the use of astronomical instruments, but the immortal discoveries he subsequently made show him to have been a born astronomer.