There can be little doubt that the fame
as an astronomer which Halley ultimately acquired, great as it
certainly was, would have been even greater still had it not been
somewhat impaired by the misfortune that he had to shine in the same
sky as that which was illumined by the unparalleled genius of Newton.
Edmund Halley was born at Haggerston, in the Parish of St. Leonard's,
Shoreditch, on October 29th, 1656. His father, who bore the same
name as his famous son, was a soap-boiler in Winchester Street,
London, and he had conducted his business with such success that he
accumulated an ample fortune. I have been unable to obtain more than
a very few particulars with respect to the early life of the future
astronomer. It would, however, appear that from boyhood he showed
considerable aptitude for the acquisition of various kinds of
learning, and he also had some capacity for mechanical invention.
Halley seems to have received a sound education at St. Paul's School,
then under the care of Dr. Thomas Gale.
Here, the young philosopher rapidly distanced his competitors in the
various branches of ordinary school instruction. His superiority
was, however, most conspicuous in mathematical studies, and, as a
natural development of such tastes, we learn that by the time he had
left school he had already made good progress in astronomy.
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