tion. His work was wholly technical, his writings dry and condensed; but his reform of the national observatory was fundamental. He not only procured for it an instrumental outfit of the modern type, but established the modern system of observation. The number of assistants was increased during his term of office from one to six, and he substituted quarterly for annual publication of results. He possessed the true instinct of a practical astronomer. Troughton used to say that ‘a new instrument was at all times a better cordial for the astronomer-royal than any which the doctor could supply.’ Arago visited Greenwich to acquire his methods; Airy regarded him as the principal improver of modern practical astronomy; Bessel, many of whose refinements he anticipated, was his enthusiastic admirer. Pond's double-altitude observations, made with his two mural circles in 1825–35, have been reduced by Mr. S. C. Chandler for the purposes of his research into the variation of latitude (Astr. Journal, Nos. 313, 315). He speaks of them as ‘a rich mine of stellar measurements,’ and considers that their accuracy ‘has been scarcely surpassed anywhere or at any time.’ His catalogues are, however, somewhat marred by slight periodical errors, depending probably upon the system of fundamental stars employed in their construction (W. A. Rogers, in Nature, xxviii. 472). A translation by Pond of Laplace's ‘Système du Monde’ was published in 1809, and he contributed many articles to Rees's ‘Encyclopædia.’
[Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, x. 357; Proceedings of the Royal Society, iii. 434; Annual Biography and Obituary, 1837, vol. xxi.; Gent. Mag. 1836, ii. 546; Report of the Brit. Association, i. 128, 132, 136 (Airy); Grant's Hist. of Astronomy, p. 491; Edinburgh Review, xci. 324; Penny Cyclopædia (De Morgan); André et Rayet's L'Astronomie Pratique, i. 32; Marie's Hist. des Sciences, x. 223; Mädler's Geschichte der Himmelskunde, vol. ii. passim; Annuaire de l'Observatoire de Bruxelles, 1864, p. 331 (Mailly); Bessel's Populäre Vorlesungen, p. 543; Poggendorff's Biogr.-lit. Handwörterbuch; Observatory, xiii. 204 (Lewis on Pond's instruments); Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Royal Society's Cat. of Scientific Papers; Allibone's Crit. Dict. of English Literature.]
PONET or POYNET, JOHN (1514?–1556), bishop of Winchester, was born in Kent about 1514, and educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, under Sir Thomas Smith (Strype, Smith, pp. 20, 159). He was a great scholar, skilled especially in Greek, in which he adopted Cheke's mode of pronunciation (Strype, Cheke, p. 18). He graduated, became fellow of the college in 1532, bursar there from 1537 to 1539, and dean from 1540 to 1542. He proceeded D.D. in 1547. He was a strong divine of the reforming school; clever, but somewhat unscrupulous. Cranmer saw his ability, and made him his chaplain, a promotion which must have come before 1547, as in that year Ponet delivered to the archbishop a letter from his close friend Roger Ascham, praying to be relieved from eating fish in Lent (Strype, Cranmer, i. 240, cf. p. 607). Meanwhile other preferment had come to him. On 15 Nov. 1543 he became rector of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, London. On 12 June 1545 he was made rector of Lavant, Sussex, and on 12 Jan. 1545–6 he became canon of Canterbury, resigning Lavant. In 1547 he was proctor for the diocese of Canterbury. For Henry VIII he made a curious dial of the same kind as that erected in 1538 in the first court of Queens' College. While with Cranmer he built a summer parlour or ‘solar’ at Lambeth Palace, which Archbishop Parker repaired in after years (Strype, Parker, ii. 26, 79).
Ponet was a great preacher, and had a wide range of acquirements, knowing mathematics, astronomy, German, and Italian, besides being a good classical scholar and a theologian. In Lent 1550 he preached the Friday sermons before Edward VI, and on 6 June 1550 he was appointed bishop of Rochester. He was the first bishop consecrated according to the new ordinal (Strype, Cranmer, pp. 274, 363). He was the last bishop who was allowed to hold with his see his other preferments; and there was some reason for the permission in his case, in that there was no palace for the bishop when he was consecrated. On 18 Jan. 1550–1 he was appointed one of thirty-one commissioners to ‘correct and punish all anabaptists, and such as did not duly administer the sacraments according to the Book of Common Prayer’ (Strype, Memorials, ii. i. 385).
Ponet was one of those who consecrated Hooper bishop of Gloucester on 8 March 1550–1. He appears not to have shared in Hooper's objection to the vestments. With Cranmer and Ridley, Ponet was consulted in March 1550–1 about the difficult case of the Princess Mary; and their answer as to her hearing mass—‘that to give license to sin was sin; nevertheless, they thought the king might suffer or wink at it for a time’ (Strype, Memorials, ii. i. 451)—seems to bear traces of his handiwork. On 23 March 1550–1 he was appointed bishop of Winchester, Gardiner having been deprived. A condition of his appointment, which he at once carried out, was that
