I had some correspondence with him in
December. In June and August my Trigonometry was printing.

"On Jan. 5th, 1828, I came from London. It seems that I had been
speculating truly 'without book' on perturbations of planetary
elements, for on Jan. 17th and 18th I wrote a Paper on a supposed
error of Laplace, and just at the end I discovered that he was quite
right: I folded up the Paper and marked it 'A Lesson.' I set two
papers of questions for Smith's Prizes (there being a deficiency of
one Examiner, viz. the Plumian Professor).

"Before the beginning of 1828 Whewell and I had determined on
repeating the Dolcoath experiments. On Jan. 8th I have a letter from
Davies Gilbert (then President of the Royal Society) congratulating me
upon the Solar Theory, and alluding to our intended summer's visit to
Cornwall. We had somehow applied to the Board of Longitude for
pendulums, but Dr Young wished to delay them, having with Capt. Basil
Hall concocted a scheme for making Lieut. Foster do all the work:
Whewell and I were indignant at this, and no more was said about
it. On Jan. 24th Dr Young, in giving notice of the Board of Longitude
meeting, informs me that the clocks and pendulums are ready.

"I had made known that I was a candidate for the Plumian
Professorship, and nobody thought it worth while to oppose me. One
person at least (Earnshaw) had intended to compete, but he called on
me to make certain that I was a candidate, and immediately withdrew. I
went on in quality of Syndic for the care of the Observatory,
ingrafting myself into it. But meantime I told everybody that the
salary (about _L300_) was not sufficient for me; and on Jan. 20th I
drafted a manifesto or application to the University for an increase
of salary. The day of election to the Professorship was Feb. 6th. As I
was officially (as Lucasian Professor) an elector, I was present, and
I explained to the electors that I could not undertake the
responsibility of the Observatory without augmentation of income, and
that I requested their express sanction to my application to the
University for that purpose. They agreed to this generally, and I was
elected. I went to London immediately to attend a meeting of the
Board of Longitude and returned on Feb. 8th. On Feb. 15th I began my
Lectures (which, this year, included Mechanics, Optics, Pneumatics,
and Hydrostatics) in the room below the University Library. The number
of names was 26. The Lectures terminated on Mar