footsteps, and the
world waited 150 years before the discrepancy was explained.

[Sidenote: Oxford's tardy recognition of Bradley.]

The attitude of our leading universities towards science and scientific
men is of sufficient importance to justify another glance at the relations
between Bradley and Oxford. We have seen that Oxford's treatment of
Bradley was not altogether satisfactory. She left him to learn astronomy
as he best could, and he owes no teaching to her. She made him Professor
of Astronomy, but gave him no observatory and a beggarly income which he
had to supplement by giving lectures on a different subject. But when he
had disregarded these discouragements and made a name for himself, Oxford
took her share in recognition. He was created D.D. by diploma in 1742; and
when his discovery of nutation was announced in 1748, and produced
distinctions and honours of all kinds from over the world, we are told
that "amidst all these distinctions, wide as the range of modern science,
and permanent as its history, there was one which probably came nearer his
heart, and was still more gratifying to his feeling than all. Lowth
(afterwards Bishop of London), a popular man, an elegant scholar, and
possessed of considerable eloquence, had in 1751 to make his last speech
in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford as Professor of Poetry. In recording
the benefits for which the University was indebted to its benefactors, he
mentioned the names of those whom Sir Henry Savile's foundation had
established there: 'What men of learning! what mathematicians! we owe to
Savile, Briggs, Wallis, Halley; to Savile we owe Greaves, Ward, Wren,
Gregory, Keill, and one whom I will not name, for posterity will ever have
his name on its lips.' Bradley was himself present; there was no one in
the crowded assembly on whom the allusion was lost, or who did not feel
the truth and justice of it; all eyes were turned to him, while the walls
rung with shouts of heartfelt affection and admiration; it was like the
triumph of Themistocles at the Olympic games."

[Sidenote: The study of "residual phenomena."]

These words of Rigaud indicate the fame deservedly acquired by an earnest
and simple-minded devotion to science: but can we learn anything from the
study of Bradley's work to guide us in further research? The chief lessons
would seem to be that if we make a series of careful observations, we
shall probably find some deviation from expectation: that we