Page:Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Vol 4.djvu/199

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versy. In 1816 he was appointed Bishop of Llandaff; and three years afterwards he was translated to the see of Peterborough. In the course of a few years from this time, his health, which had been already undermined by his sedentary habits and severe studies, be- gan rapidly to decUne, and he was compelled to abstain from the active duties of his professorship and from the exciting labours of controversy ; and though his infirmities continued to increase both in number and severity, yet his life was prolonged to a mature old age by the vigilant and anxious care and nursing of one of the most exemplary and affectionate of wives.

Dr. Marsh was a man of great learning and very uncommon vigour of mind, and as a writer, remarkable for the great precision of his language and his singular clearness in the statement of his argument. His lectures on Divinity are a most valuable contribution to the theological student, and his "Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome" presents one of the most masterly views of the great principles which distinguish those churches, which has ever appeared from the pen of a Protestant writer. His controversial writings, though generally full of acuteness and ability, must be ex- pected to share the fate of all productions which are not kept from perishing by the permanent existence of the interests, of whatever nature, which gave rise to them : and we may justly lament that learning and powers of reasoning of so extraordinary a character, were not more exclusively and steadily devoted to the completion of more durable and systematic theological labours.

The father of the late Professor Rigaud had the care of the King's Observatory at Kew, an appointment which probably influ- enced the early tastes and predilections of his son. He was ad- mitted a member of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1791, at the early age of sixteen, and continued to reside there as fellow and tutor until 1810, when he was appointed Savilian Professor of Geometry. He afterwards succeeded to the care of the Radcliffe Observatory, and the noble suite of instruments by Bird, with which it is fur- nished, was augmented, on his recommendation, by a new transit and circle, so as to fit it for the most refined purposes of modern practical astronomy : and we venture to express a hope that it will shortly become equally efficient and useful with the similar esta- blishment which exists in the sister university.

Professor Rigaud published, in 1831, the miscellaneous works and correspondence of Bradley, to which he afterwards added a very interesting supplement on the astronomical papers of Harriott. In 1838, he published some curious notices of the first publication of the Principia of Newton; and he had also projected a life of Halley, with a view of rescuing the memory of that great man from much of the obloquy to which it has been exposed ; he had made exten- sive collections for a new edition of the mathematical collections of Pappus ; and he was the author of many valuable communications to the Transactions of the Royal Astronomical Society, and to other scientific journals, on various subjects connected with physical and astronomical science. There was probably no other person of