ABRAHAM SHARP.*

THE life of a Yorkshire yeoman, addicted to science and ful- filling the small daily duties which linked him to his family and fellow-men—born in June, 1653, when Oliver Cromwell was on the eve of becoming Lord Protector, dying in August, 1742, when George II. was King and Frederick of Prussia had just signed his first peace with Austria—a life so quiet and uneventful, contrasts oddly with the tumult and dramatic energy compressed into those nine decades of European story. Stuart Kings rise once more, and set for ever; the British Monarchy becomes an association " limited;" the Grand Monarque, like the magnificent prodigal he was, squanders his superb inheritance during half-a-century of war and wicked- ness, then flickers out defeated and bankrupt ; a new Power shows its dawning light in the North, Pultawa effaces Narva, and St. Petersburg signifies faintly to the world that the foundations of a formidable Empire are laid broad and deep. The Turks, who were besieging Vienna when our yeoman-student, thirty years of age, was assisting Flamsteed at Greenwich, had long ceased to be a terror to Europe when he died ; and, as we have hinted, another youthful Power, which has grown so great in our day, had just wrested Silesia from Maria Theresa when he lay on his death-bed, after a long, peaceful, and well-spent existence. There is a refreshing coolness in these sequestered lives, led beside, but apart from, the heat and glare of grandeur ; and they serve to remind us of something too often forgotten, that so much of the world's real work is done by men whom the stately historian does not mention, or to whom, it may be, he consecrates a line. Abraham Sharp, the Yorkshire yeoman- student, was more fortunate than many ; he did not live unknown in his day to the " fit, though few ;" and his name, still dear to men of science, has its little niche in their records as that of one who laboured worthily in their boundless domain. Nevertheless, the greater number of his days were passed in the home of his forefathers, near Bradford, as remote from the stage of the great world as he was from its showy actors, its shifting scenes, and its terrible dramas. Mr. William Cudworth has undertaken to set his useful and un- pretending life before us, and he has done so successfully.

Born at Little Horton, near Bradford, the sixth son of John Sharp, a vigorous supporter of the Parliament in the Civil

• Life and Correspondence of Abraham Sharp, The Yorkshire Mathematician and Astronomer, and Assistant of Flameteed. By William Cudworth. London : Sampson Low and Co.

Wars, Abraham Sharp started with some considerable advan- tages. His family was of old standing, tracing its occupation of the same land at least to 1365 ; it was prosperous, hardy, industrious, and the boy was therefore able to profit by the teaching afforded at the Bradford Grammar School, locally famous at the time. Nothing more, however, is known about him, except that he was attracted to mathematics, and that in order to study the science he was bound to learn and did learn Latin, in which language all the text-books used in the school were composed. When he was sixteen, his father apprenticed him to a mercer at York, the old father and clothier wishing that Abraham, like his brother Isaac, should devote himself to trade. But the boy's bent was stronger than the paternal will, and he seems to have broken his indentures even before his father's death in 1672. Some obscurity hangs over the incidents, but it is evident that, instead of returning to his home, Abraham went to Liverpool, where he established a school, pretty good evidence of his energy. How long he remained there, how he got to London, is uncertain, nor are the facts of much importance. By some process, the perse- vering student did reach the Metropolis and become an assis- tant to Flamsteed, with whom he is found working in 1684, for in his memorandum-book is an entry, March, 1684, " boat-hire to Greenwich, two shillings." For seven years he was employed by the first Astronomer-Royal, who was so shabbily treated by the Government, and Flamsteed's un- faltering regard for him shows that he rendered faithful service, not only in taking observations, but applying his exact and inventive genius to the construction of instruments. His chief exploit was in building the famous Mural Arc, a work performed, writes Flamsteed, principally by "Abraham Sharp, my most trusty assistant, a man enriched with gifts and resources of every kind to render him competent to complete a work so intricate and difficult." John Smeaton, a thoroughly good judge, considered that Sharp was the first person who cut, by hand, accurate and delicate divisions upon astronomical instruments; and it is remarkable that Jesse Ramsden, who superseded hand-division by inventing " dividing engines," was a grand-nephew of Sharp. After leaving Greenwich, where his health broke down, he had some engagement at Portsmouth which he took unwillingly, because " during these warre times " he did not find enough encouragement in some business he had engaged in. He stayed there three years, earning less than £100 a year, and then went back for good to Little Horton. His return home was caused by the death of his brother, who left a widow and young son. Sharp managed the property and guided the boy, to whom he was much devoted, and on his sudden death, a great affliction to the uncle, the family estate fell to him. It is really his life at Horton which constitutes the attraction of the book for the general reader, who may also be interested in the account of the disinterested and noble part played by Sharp and Crossthwait in the preparation and publication of the Historia Ccelestis.

Yet there is nothing startling in his daily round. That which is admirable is the strict performance of small duties growing out of his position as head of a house, and his un- remitting pursuit of science under difficulties. His accounts, which have been preserved, show how methodical he was ; his

calculations, some of which remain, reveal his enormous labours. He had no observatory, still he observed. In 1703,

he complains that Jupiter had " quite got beyond his reach," from a casement, and he was therefore " constrained to attend him without doors." Some old apple-trees furnished a rest for some time, yet, his nephew cutting them down, the astronomer had to construct a tripod,—in fact, he had to make nearly all his instruments for all purposes. Living remote and almost isolated, communication with London was so difficult that months elapsed, now and again, before letters and parcels came to hand. There was a post-office at Brad- ford, but he could not always go thither with letters, and on one occasion a "knavish boy" kept two, "out of a villainous curiosity, I suppose, to open and read them." Two carriers

were the transport agents for parcels to London. Flamsteed applied for quills and penknives, and Sharp sent them with this comment :—

" The charge for the quills and a penknife is inconsiderable, little exceeding that of the book you sent. The penknife came easier than you suppose. They stand only to twopence halfpenny each, one with another ; the fiat hafts are the cheaper. I could not be sure to get such at that rate any time on the sudden, but upon notice I may."

A thousand quills, in 1706, cost 4s. 6d., and a " glass pen," 6d. ; five yards of cloth, bought in 1714, are put down at 50s.; and for a copy of Thucydides, purchased six years before his death, he paid 5s. 6d. The accounts show the variety of his occupa- tions,—he earned a little by teaching ; he made and sold a " way- wiser " of his own invention, an accurate instrument, weight 12 lb. ; he constructed sun-dials for his neighbours, at a price ; he lent moneys on bonds or tangible securities, one, for example, being Le Brun's Travels ; he seems to have done a little in con- veyancing ; and all the time he worked steadily at his beloved science. We sometimes bewail our misty London skies.

Writing in January, 1716, to Flamsteed, from Horton, Sharp says :—" For these two months there has scarce been three clear days and nights, but continual dark and cloudy weather and thick fogs,—though the frost is severe enough, and now a snowstorm." This in a thoroughly rural district, for Bradford itself was then no more than a village. At that time he had been solitary for six years, for he was a bachelor throughout his life, and his sister—that is, his brother's widow—died in 1710. At that moment he wrote pathetically to Flamsteed :—

" Now I am left the only remaining branch of the family [the elder branch] that retains the name, the rest being all worn out. Although no temporal disadvantage, but the contrary, is yet in view, yet I am like to be unsettled and solitary, and my circum- stances must needs undergo a considerable alteration ; but whether for better or worse cannot yet be certainly determined. Being now left destitute of my most desirable worldly comforts, I would gladly still, if possible, retain your correspondence, it being what has ever afforded me as great satisfaction as any earthly thing, for cultivating which I have little to offer.

He was always conspicuously modest, and never fretted about the recognition or non-recognition of his claims,—his unconscious merit being ever noteworthy. How patient he was, and had to be, may be inferred from the fact that the bookseller who undertook to bring out his Geometry Improved, and give for the same twelve copies, sent four, the remaining eight not arriving until ten years had gone by. Perhaps it was his equable temper which enabled him to live so long. For his earlier elaborate Mathematical Tables he only got two

copies, at the end of a year ! His study was a small room in the square tower forming the central block in the hall ; his observatory, the roof, reached by a stairway from the room• There he shut himself up, receiving his food through a sliding panel, inaccessible to visitors, when deeply absorbed in calcu- lations. The privileged few were allowed to notify their presence by " rubbing a stone " on the door, and were ad- mitted or not, as the case might be. Smeaton, who came after Sharp, had a similar device to secure his solitude. He was a truly religious man, a Presbyterian, and attended the Nonconformist chapel which sprung up at Bradford after the Act of Uniformity, which, among others, struck his elder brother. On his way to chapel, he "distributed alms in a peculiar way. He generally contrived to have plenty of halfpence in his pockets, and these coins he suffered to be taken out of his hands, held behind him, without asking questions, or even looking back to see who were the recipients." We note, too, that he gave a tenth of all gains in charity, bestowing a pound even when the total fell short of ten. One entry is, " To piety, out of interest ;" but perhaps the most touching, since it shows his tender-heartedness in a concrete instance, is this :—" Given a poor sick man that told me he knew navigation, £1 lls." Altogether, he was a bright, laborious, gentle, steadfast kind of man ; strict, businesslike, hard at a bargain, yet broadly generous from humanity and warm-bloodedness, as well as principle grounded in his unaffected piety. His body was buried in the chancel of Bradford parish church, and his epitaph speaks the simple truth about his labours, his friends,

and his virtues. This " Life " is the first which has done

justice to the Bradford worthy,—may, indeed, be said to be the first biography of this good and able man. He certainly deserved, though we may assume from his character that he never looked for, such an acknowledgment of his single-minded career. Surely wealthy and enlightened Bradford may show in some worthy fashion that she is proud of this, her honour- able and dutiful yeoman-student.