"This was Roscoe's favorite residence during the days of his prosperity. It had been the seat of elegant hospitality and literary retirement. The house was now silent and deserted. The windows were closed-the library was gone.

"I inquired after the fate of Mr. Roscoe's library, which had consisted of scarce and foreign books, from many of which he had drawn the materials for his Italian histories. It had passed under the hammer of the auctioneer, and was dispersed about the country.

"Some of Mr. Roscoe's townsmen may regard him merely as a man of business; others as a politician; all find him engaged like themselves in ordinary occupations, and surpassed, perhaps, by themselves on some points of worldly wisdom

But the man of letters, who speaks of Liverpool, speaks of it as the residence of Roscoe.

VII

FRANCIS BAILY

1774-1844

NE of the most useful men of the last cen

O tury, and yet one of the least known, was

Francis Baily, banker, author, and astronomer. Few men are so able to round out a career with that degree of completeness which is the true though not the popular-measure of success, than was the London banker who now claims our attention. He was the son of a country banker, was liberally educated and from the first was keenly interested in physical science. An early acquaintance with Dr. Priestley stimulated his fondness for scientific research. He deliberately chose a business career and "served his time" in London. He then spent two years in America, mainly in travel. He first associated himself with his father in Newbury, England, and later with a friend of his father in London. In 1814 he had made himself felt in the metropolis, as is evident from the fact that the committee of the Stock Exchange to prepare the evidence against the perpetrators of the De Beranger ("Lord Cochrane") fraud turned over to Baily the laborious task. The Penny Cyclopædia says

the work was done "in so masterly a manner that no more complete chain of evidence was ever offered in a court of justice." The man of affairs somehow found time to indulge a taste for mathematics. He published, one after another in quick succession, a number of works on annuities and kindred subjects, one of which, in 1836, was translated into the French, and is said to be still of much value. In 1812, he published a “Chart of History," and in the following year an "Epitome of Universal History," in two volumes. Having amassed a fortune in banking, at 51 he retired from active business, giving himself up to his favorite pursuit-the study and promotion of astronomy. During the next twenty years, this indefatigable student, with two careers already to his credit-that of a financier and that of a mathematician-practically entered upon a third in which he was destined to associate his successes with those of Sir John Herschel, and to aid immeasurably, by his means and influence, the promotion of astronomical research. While in the midst of business, in 1820, he materially aided in the founding of the Astronomical Society of London, and its great usefulness was largely due to his careful management of its details, as its first chairman. The memoirs of that society bear frequent testimony to his resultful activities.

The society's "Catalogue of Stars" was suggested and superintended by him. Of this work, his memorialist, Sir John Herschel, says it "put the astronomical world in possession of a power which may be said, without exaggeration, to have changed the face of siderial astronomy."

To Francis Baily is ascribed the entire third volume of the Astronomical Society's Transactions, with about fifteen memoirs inserted in other volumes, also various addresses. His last public appearance was at Oxford in 1844, where he was honored with the degree of Doctor of Civil Law.

Sir John Herschel in his feeling memorial of his friend and co-worker, thus sums up the character and career of Francis Baily: "To term Mr. Baily a man of brilliant genius or great invention, would in effect be doing him wrong. His talents were great, but rather solid and sober than brilliant, and such as seized their subject rather with a tenacious grasp than with a sudden pounce." Another eulogist of this simple-great man notes that "many persons thought he learnt this power in business; we are perfectly satisfied that he carried it to the Stock Exchange, and would have had it whatever walk of life he might have been thrown into."

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