Such were the feelings with which the government regarded even their own favourite project, and we may therefore be surprised at the endurance with which Delambre solicited, and at length partially obtained, leave to recommence his operations; add to which, that his astronomical instruments caused him frequently to be molested as a spy by the ignorant populace of the departments—a fact nowise to be wondered at, when we remember that at Paris Lalande’s observatory was searched for arms, and the tube of a telescope carried off to the authorities as some strange species of gun. Delambre did not interfere in politics; it would have been strange indeed if he had found time. It was amply sufficient for one man to link his name to the science of astronomy, past, present, and future, by history, observations, and tables. [Illustration] DRAKE. Francis Drake, the first British circumnavigator of the globe, was born in Devonshire, of humble parents. So much is admitted: with respect to the date of his birth, and the method of his nurture, our annalists, Camden and Stowe, are not agreed. By the latter we are told that Drake was born at Tavistock, about 1545, and brought up under the care of a kinsman, the well-known navigator, Sir John Hawkins. Camden, on the other hand, anticipates his birth by several years, and says that he was bound apprentice to a small shipowner on the coast of Kent, who, dying unmarried, in reward of his industry, bestowed his bark upon him as a legacy. Both accounts agree that in 1667 he went with Hawkins to the West Indies on a trading voyage, which gave its colour to the rest of his life. Their little squadron was obliged by stress of weather to put into St. Juan de Ulloa, on the coast of Mexico; where, after being received with a show of amity, it was beset and attacked by a superior force, and only two vessels escaped. To make amends for his losses in this adventure, in the quaint language of the biographer Prince, in his ‘Worthies of Devon,’ “Mr. Drake was persuaded by the minister of his ship that he might lawfully recover the value of the King of Spain by reprisal, and repair his losses upon him any where else. The case was clear in sea divinity; and few are such infidels as not to believe in doctrines which make for their profit. Whereupon Drake, though then a poor private man, undertook to revenge himself upon so mighty a monarch.” [Illustration: _Engraved by W. Holl._ DRAKE. _From an original Picture in the possession of Sir T. F. Eliott Drake Bar^t. of Nutwell Court, near Exeter._ Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. _London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street._ ]