'I heard no more of the Frenchman after this; but was told that, my letters being shown King Charles, he startled at the assertion of the fixed stars' places being false in the catalogue; said, with some vehemence, "He must have them anew observed, examined, and corrected, for the use of his seamen;" and further (when it was urged to him how necessary it was to have a good stock of observations taken for correcting the motions of the moon and planets), with the same earnestness, "he must have it done." And when he was asked Who could, or who should do it? "The person (says he) that informs you of them." Whereupon I was appointed to it, with the incompetent allowance aforementioned; but with assurances, at the same time, of such further additions as thereafter should be found requisite for carrying on the work.' [Illustration: FLAMSTEED'S SEXTANT. (_From an engraving in the 'Historia Coelestis.'_)] Thus, in his twenty-ninth year, John Flamsteed became the first Astronomer Royal. In many ways he was an ideal man for the post. In the twelve years which had passed since he left school he had accomplished an amazing amount of work. Despite his constant ill-health and severe sufferings, and the circumstance--which may be inferred from many expressions in his autobiographies--that he assisted his father in his business, he had made himself master, perhaps more thoroughly than any of his contemporaries, of the entire work of a practical astronomer as it was then understood. He was an indefatigable computer; the calculation of tables of the motions of the moon and planets, which should as faithfully as possible represent their observed positions, had had an especial attraction for him, and, as has been already mentioned, some years before his appointment he had drawn up a catalogue of stars, based upon the observations of Tycho Brahe. More than that, he had not been a merely theoretical worker, he had been a practical observer of very considerable skill, and, in the dearth of suitable instruments, had already made one or two for himself, and had contemplated the making of others. In his first letter to Sir Jonas Moore he asks for instruction as to the making of object-glasses for telescopes, for he was quite prepared to set about the task of making his own. In addition to his tireless industry, which neither illness nor suffering could abate, he was a man of singularly exact and business-like habits. The precision with which he preserves and records the dates of all letters received or sent is an illustration of this. On the other hand, he had the defects of his circumstances and character. His numerous autobiographical sketches betray him, not indeed as a conceited man, in the ordinary sense of the word, but as an exceedingly self-conscious one. Devout and high-principled he most assuredly was, but, on the other hand, he shows in almost